


the choices I chose and you made

by muffin_reverie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-10-02
Packaged: 2019-07-08 12:31:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 34,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15930497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muffin_reverie/pseuds/muffin_reverie
Summary: In which Draco Malfoy learns of hope and redemption - or at least he tries to. And in which Hermione Granger discovers the heart behind an incorrigible and loathsome foul git - or at least she hopes she has.





	1. The story of him

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Characters and main storyline were borrowed from the author who brought sparkles of magic into everyone's lives, J.K. Rowling, from the magical world of Harry Potter.
> 
> It's been a while since I've written for the fandom and hardly for this pairing, but I can't deny the growing affection I have for these two characters and the "if only's" and "maybe's".

“What do you want?”  
  
The open-ended question rings loud and clear through the vast yet enclosed room. The electric mix of apprehensive judgment and precarious emotions is evident in the cold air as the wait begins for either condemnation or deliverance.  
  
What he thinks he deserves and what he really wants is ambivalence. His eyes are a colour of muted cloudy grey; a reflection of the quiet disarray of contradictory feelings within him yet the guarded nature of his refuses to show any weakness. There are choices to be made and he knows he has to stop making the wrong ones – ones that began from the moment he was introduced to the impression of blood status and what it meant. He regrets each and every erroneous choice he has made, which in turn, became decisive consequences that he despises himself for. The lack of courage, or _cowardice_ if he prefers to be harsh on himself, had long wrapped his darkened heart of mislead perceptions, sealed-off emotions, bigotry opinions and callous remarks.  
  
_‘Without reservations, this is why I was sorted not into Gryffindor.’_  
  
The brief mental statement in dry humour flashes in his mind, and leads to the next untimely thought with the mere mention of one of the four houses in Hogwarts. He wills himself not to shift his gaze, as much as he desperately yearns to, to the one person whom his mind would mechanically associate to the courageous house of red and gold. The moment he averts his eyes in that very direction, he knows that he will crumble for a desperate plead of redemption – for the hope of a correct choice in the midst of his suffocated mind and soul of bitter hatred and unwavering anguish.  
  
The flicker of hope that exists, he wants to believe that he can still use the present tense to describe it, from somewhere in the latter half of his third year in Hogwarts.

..................................

  
**1994-95**

  
It had been an unexpected spark that lit the gentle though tremulous light in the darkness he knew. Her fiery look of undeterred passion for what she believed in and what she stood for – goodness, integrity and loyalty, took him by surprise and beyond just the literal physical strike across his face. He had escaped with his tail between his legs, terribly mortified, but also with a disorientated wonder of her undaunted conviction to stand up for a friend time and time again, and even for a creature.  
  
Through the day and into the silence of the night, his mind wandered to her. As one with methodical logic and astuteness, combined with an intellect that his outstanding grades and magical ability often approve with, he realised, albeit as belated as it was, that perhaps he had been careless about her; blood status, purity and all. He had flinched at the thought that his upbringing, the years of what he had been taught and drummed with, were possibly flawed.  
  
The next few days and all through Easter, he had secretly indulged in books of history and politics of the wizarding world and its eras of persecutions, marginalisation, and uprisings. He devoured the books at a rapid pace as the more he read, the more absorbed he was in trying to decipher what he had always believed in. At his finals for History of Magic that year, he caught himself furiously scribbling away almost three feet of a parchment on the 15th century’s emergent separation of the magical world’s inhabitants and opinions that unknowingly became the unspoken statutes of division – but he vanished whatever was written as he realised how much they revealed his newfound revelations, and quickly rewrote his essay based on what was only revealed in their textbook and reference materials.  
  
He tried to dismiss the thoughts when he arrived home for the summer holidays and his father questioned him of his school year. He was asked to be a companion in his father’s visits to the Ministry, to meetings and introductions, to people he had heard of before but never quite met. His mother seemed a little restless with the arrangements, but he didn’t ask why because he had never questioned his father and knew better than to do so. In the back of his mind however, he knew that his childhood outlook had took a change, one that he wasn’t sure then if it had been for the better or worse, considering his father’s pure conviction in the Dark Lord and while he may be in Slytherin, he had indisputable filial fealty for his parents.  
  
At the Quidditch World Cup however, he was reminded of the dismissed thoughts when he saw her in the boisterous grounds filled with coloured flags and charmed merchandises, deafening cheers and dances, and staggering amount of people. He resisted the urge to pull her away and question her to satisfy the conflicted inner demands of his heart for an answer on how she, a Muggle, believed and understood something he couldn’t. How could she have picked a side with such confidence that it was the one to believe in? He wanted to sneer at what he would like to believe to be her gullibility and indolence to succumb to pretences of optimism, to mock her self-righteousness and audacity to even so much as to have stood up to him – a pureblood with centuries of magic, nobility and prestige in his ancestry.  
  
The many questions he had swarmed his mind but the one that stood out the most; that lingered at his tongue as he bit it back, was why in Merlin’s name did she have a sudden effect on him to question himself, his background and what he believed in. Out of spite and perhaps in the lingering childishness he still had, he didn’t resist the sneer that rose from his lips. He stood by his father as the man made known of their superiority, despite the small voice that told him that there should be no such supremacy no matter how much they believed they are entitled to it in their influence and status.  
  
When the Death Eaters arrived, he had been expecting of it although he had not been privy to the plan but he had suspected it as much with the progression of his summer with his father. What he had not expected however was that she would be around and she would be among the unanticipated yet probable target of their choice. He wasn’t dim-witted enough to not piece together the possible hurt they would inflict on her just to underline the anticipated return of the Dark Lord, alongside the Dark Mark that would shadow across the World Cup grounds. He didn’t so much care about her well-being for the sake of it, but rather for the answers that he wanted to get from her, ideally in an environment without panicked screams, terrified cries, and dark figures looming around. So he detached himself from his father’s side and went in search of her, or rather, the trio as he knew there would never be her without the other two lads. Sure enough when he finally saw her, they were among the distraught crowd escaping the campsite and were heading towards the forest, looking awfully misplaced in their separation from the rest of their group and what to do next.  
  
He made his presence known when the youngest Weasley boy tripped, and didn’t even flinch when the redhead hurled a crude insult at him. He easily thought of a scathing reply of his own but decided not to waste any time, he could tell that the Death Eaters were near as they were fuelled by the fear they seem to sense, and gave a lackadaisical comment before carefully twisting his suggestion of their escape into one of a captious remark. He made sure to direct the statement to her. Her defiant stance was predictable, but he also saw the momentary flash of surprise in her brown orbs as she stared at him with question.  
  
An almost deafening blast sounded and with the obvious urgency of the situation, he gave it out at point-blank by telling her that she would be at the centre of their attention if she doesn’t leave immediately. Her friends were defensive of her, and how he had wanted to laugh out loud at their faces for their foolhardy gallantry at such moments, but he refrained from doing so and threw out the one word of bigotry insult just to get them going. Instead of being affected by the term as he thought she would, her golden brown eyes wordlessly conveyed her quick discernment of what he was trying to do. She seized her friend’s arm and stopped the redhead from possibly trying to hex him. Throwing in another thoughtless remark, he hoped that they would just leave already and stopped lingering in the foolishness of wanting to stand up to the Death Eaters, whom he wasn’t sure of their full capabilities just yet either.  
  
Ever the brilliant one as he observed, she had already caught on to the concealed urgency and dragged the other two with her so they could leave. He breathed in relief and just as he was about to turn away, he caught her eyes at the very brief moment she looked over her shoulder at him; an unspoken question of his actions but he offered no answer and moved on.  
  
He tried to remain impassive through the start of the school year and kept up his usual snide facade, all while trying to figure out the best way to get the answers he wanted from her. She was hardly ever alone and even when she was, she was never without the presence of other students; he had thought the library would be the best option but the timing never seemed right for him to approached her.  
  
It wasn’t until one day in late September that he found her near the Restricted Section of the library, silently reading of what looked like a card in her hands. The lights of the library revealed the sombre expression of her facial features and he had been curious of the cause. He stood by the bookshelves with a book on Advanced Potions in his hands as he watched her. A sad smile drifted to her lips and he found himself in reckless inquisitiveness of the reason that the smartest witch of their age looking rather depreciative. Granted that he had never gave her a reason to have high self-esteem, but she had always been so bold and confident anyway especially in their lessons despite what others may tease her with, and the time that she gave him a good smack on the face was reason enough for him to believe that she was a rather strong-willed witch.  
  
“A fairytale book made you cry?” He casually asked as he slid away from the bookshelf and walked up to her. She looked up at him and the brief movement of her hands to hide the card from him revealed to him it was a birthday card, what with the colourful sparkly fonts and giveaway decorations of bold colours and motifs.  
  
He paused as she breathed in deeply. “What do you want? I’m not in the mood for your callous, pompous remarks so unless you’d like a re-enactment of your ferret dramatics, I’d suggest you leave me alone right now.”  
  
Irritated at the mention of the embarrassing incident, his tongue reeled in for an insult but he caught himself in time. He had his questions and they weren’t going to leave him, the sooner he comprehended those answers, the better. “I’ll make this quick and you can be off to your meddling ways.” He evenly said and took a seat opposite her despite the glare she threw his way. “This isn’t your place, why are you here?” She narrowed her eyes and he knew she would hex him within the next second if he didn’t elaborate further. “You may be accepted into Hogwarts to be a witch, but your birthright is not in any inclination to be one. Why did you choose this? To be here,” he waved his hand around to indicate the location mentioned was merely a figurative prose as he actually meant the wizarding community, “here in this place where people like me would be derisive and you could even be in mortal harm?”  
  
“So you do acknowledge your puerile behaviour then?”  
  
“Just answer my question, will you?” He impatiently demanded.  
  
“Why? What does it mean to you if I did?” Her brown eyes flashed a daring look of glimmering golden chestnut flecks.  
  
In response, he stood up, knowing that he wouldn’t get an answer out of her so easily and he wasn’t desperate enough to grovel for one. “Have it your way then.” He simply responded, straightening out his robes. “It’s no wonder you’re alone on this day, you make it terribly difficult for anyone to withstand your pretentious attitude.”  
  
“While you may be entitled to be a git, I am equally entitled to my birthday without being insulted of the day’s prerogative, you insensitive prat.” She spat out, unyielding in her audacity to challenge him.  
  
He chanced a glance her way and saw the hurt that briefly revealed itself in her eyes. He shut down the sudden rising feeling of an apology within him but couldn’t resist the three words that rolled off his tongue, “Well, happy birthday.” Without another word, he briskly walked away.  
  
The animosity between them didn’t lessen any further even all through December; he decided that he didn’t need those answers and with that, he resorted to what he knew best – teasing her friends and her at any opportunity possible. He defended himself on his actions on the basis that there wasn’t any reason for him to be otherwise anyway, as much as the voice in the back of his mind told him how wrong he was. He knew he was retaliating in the reasons of dejection and confusion, for the foolish pride of upholding his family name, but he didn’t want to swerve himself away. Still, he did keep up with his habitual readings to scour for the logic he couldn’t quite deny completely, and occasionally bumping into her between the shelves but for the most of it he ignored her as much as she did. Whenever their eyes met, he would pretend she wasn’t there and gave no reaction of any acknowledgement – his gaze passing over her, and she did just the same.  
  
What caught his attention again, as cliché as it had been was her sudden blossoming change at the Yule Ball of their fourth year. He was unarmed with any unkind comment, not even the slightest of an offhanded remark, as his mind could only process the thought that for once, she was a lovely girl in his school and house rivalry did not matter neither did his pride nor her blood status. He secretly admired the way she, though with hints of nervousness, held herself in confidence next to the Bulgarian Quidditch seeker despite the zealous murmurs that arose from the student body. Naturally, there were the whispers of dubiousness, some commenting on Krum’s visual acuity, and a few even went as far as snickering of a love potion. He heard them all but said nothing because it wasn’t his battle or even any obligation of his to defend her.  
  
It wasn’t until he caught sight of her running out of the Great Hall that he realised she wasn’t enjoying herself as he thought she may have been. It took him a few minutes to compose his next action and when he did, he had stealthily removed himself from the Great Hall in search of the brown, bushy-haired girl though he wasn’t sure why was he even bothered to do so.  
  
He found her by one of the quieter staircases, where he followed the muffled sounds of her crying. Her face was hidden as she sobbed into her folded arms. Uncertain of what to say and not wanting to be hexed, he just leaned against one of the stone columns and watched her cry. He observed the way her shoulders shook and her arms trembled – wrecked in tell-tale signs of misery. Little droplets of water escaped every now and then, dripping onto her blue robes, and soft brown curls escaped the pins that held them up to frame the face of a young witch. When she finally looked up, her tears had subsided, but the swollen red eyes did nothing to conceal the indignation of her brown orbs at the sight of him. He held both his hands up, as if to reveal he had no wand and no malice, he was only there because his feet betrayed him as much as his heart did. He didn’t particularly cared if he wanted to be honest, but the slightest bit of him did felt a twinge of an emotion he was uncertain of – back then, he wasn’t concerned or decidedly affected by any emotion that ranged within compassion. She said nothing, biting her lower lip as she eyed him with guarded suspicion.  
  
“You look like a drowned rat,” he said, breaking the lingering tension in the air, “which is a waste really, considering the effort you’ve obviously made for the evening.” She let out a soft snort but he caught the faint upward curve on the edge of her lips. “Don’t try for a compliment, I’m not giving one.”  
  
“I’m not asking for one.” She retorted. The Gryffindor girl rubbed her eyes with the back of her hands, slightly smudging the traces of the minimal makeup she had on. Her shoes were unceremoniously taken off, casted aside with a trace of contempt. He smirked as he kept his gaze on her, watching her in her actions. “This has been awfully silly. What was I even thinking?” She muttered to herself.  
  
“You were thinking that you could dress up for the evening, look more than decent, and enjoy yourself with a lad who couldn’t pronounce your name yet obviously would worship the ground you walked on.” He pointed out.  
  
“What good did all that do?”  
  
Recognising the signals of self-depreciation, he pushed himself away from the column and walked up to her. He sat himself down two steps below her and looked up at her; he wasn’t used to looking up at someone, much less her, but he didn’t want to be within a close proximity of her either. “Now you are being gormless.”  
  
“Now?”  
  
“Sitting here and crying your eyes out, that’s rather foolish if you asked me. You could be dancing with Krum, or off with the rest of your housemates enjoying the one night we get to stay up really late, beyond curfew.” She sniffled and looked away. He could tell he had made his point, but he needed to add something, the voice within him compelling him to, “If some idiots decided that you can’t enjoy yourself then you should go up to them and give them a good slap.”  
  
The statement earned him an astonished look before the edges of her lip slowly tugged into a smile – one that took him completely by surprise as it was the first time he had been on the receiving end of the Gryffindor’s smiles. It wasn’t just the simple expression of her mouth, but her cheekbones coloured with a flushed hint and her brown orbs glowed a warm gold of gratitude.  
  
“You remembered.” She said, sounding apologetic but more amused than the former.  
  
“How could I not?” He rolled his eyes to hide the brief moment of his own surprise at her smile. “It wasn’t that long ago and more than my cheek was bruised that day.” She muffled a giggle when he frowned at her for finding mirth in his admission. Feeling rather uneasy that he wasn’t as irate as he should be, he made to stand up and leave quickly but a tug on his dress robes had him pausing midway.  
  
“You asked me back in September why am I here, as a witch, despite being a Muggle-born. Do you still want to know why?” He nodded without a word. “Because I believe that everyone is meant for something of the greater good of everyone. We don’t choose where we are born into, but we can choose who we want to be.”  
  
Her answer remained with him through the rest of the year and all through the coming ones, even as he left her at the staircase without a word of thank you, or any acknowledgement of that very night of the Yule Ball.

..................................

  
**1995-96**

  
They were made prefects together in their fifth year. For a brief few weeks after he found out, he had been rather irritable with the knowledge as he wondered if she was summoned from the inner depths of his personal hell to torment him, reminding him of her words and what she believed in.  
  
The summer he turned 15 was also the summer that he was given books of the Dark Arts by his father, alongside the instructions to study them well and make himself useful. He wasn’t certain of his father’s intentions but he understood that it won’t be long till he was subjected to a supposed vocation, that was what he knew his father would refer it as, yet he was no longer sure if it was one that he wanted to take. He was beginning to feel much lesser inclined to the notions of a wizarding world that the Dark Lord decided would be better of all. Secretly, he debated his own blood purity and took on researching about his family tree in his unspoken question of the beginnings to the prejudices he had gradually became aware of. A few times he found himself sickened by the thought of finding some form of empathy creeping into his system – a trait he had decided to be a weakness. He bitterly fought it away and forced the emotion into the abysmal darkness. He kept up the pretence of who he was expected to be. His mother had approached him once during the summer, when his father had been away, and asked if everything was alright with him. She had a gaze that told him that she knew he wasn’t completely honest with her in the true nature of his thoughts, but she chose not to question him directly – he guessed as much that she wanted him to come forth when he was ready because he was never one to reveal any sentiments even when asked. He prided himself in shielding his feelings, and being able to discern the thoughts of others simply by observing them long enough. He studied the books his father gave him, read extra with references from the Restricted Section of the Hogwarts’ library and the quiet book store tucked in a corner of Hogsmeade, but all they ever did was to fuel his newfound reason that he wasn’t meant for the path that had been set out for him.  
  
He mostly kept out of her way because of the growing vexation he had with the inner conflict within him, and she reminded him of the possible choice he could have. He didn’t think she would have noticed of his silent evasion, considering her attention on Potter and Weasley, their upcoming O.W.L.s, and the obviously growing animosity Gryffindors seem to have against Professor Umbridge, but she did when he dodged out of a prefect duty with her. He didn’t want her voice of reason, one that he recognised to be awful similar to the voice he had in the back of his mind since the end of his third year.  
  
“What is _wrong_ with you?”  
  
He almost tripped over his school robes at the unexpected tone of livid annoyance that belonged to none other but the girl that made up one-third of the Golden Trio. He had been expecting to conduct his rounds with Hufflepuff’s Hannah Abbott instead, one of the times where the professors had expected inter-house unity with the prefects conducting their duties with prefects from other houses besides their own. The sight of the Gryffindor prefect with her hands on her waist as she stared him down was not his ideal way to complete a week of terribly hectic fifth-year classes. Disguising his discomfort with an immediate smirk, he raised an eyebrow as if to challenge her.  
  
“You know full well what I mean. I know we are neither friends nor the slightest bit of a proper acquaintance who can even stand the other, but for Merlin’s sake – we are prefects of the same school and in the same year. Did you expect to avoid me forever?”  
  
“I try to be optimistic.” He casually answered, sidestepping around her as he continued on his way.  
  
“We’re supposed to do our rounds _together_.”  
  
“You can go to the west wing and I’ll cover the Towers.” He responded without looking back.  
  
“Honestly, will it cause you so much of a pain to be in my presence?”  
  
He winced at the sting of her words. He couldn’t admit to himself but any aversion he ever had towards her was beginning to void itself with each passing day. With an exaggerated sigh of annoyance, he turned around and gave a nod of his head to his right, wordlessly indicating for her to join him. She placed her hands down and walked up to him, a questioning look still colouring her features. He wished she wouldn’t ask and perhaps she had interpreted his unvoiced request – which amazed him as she seemed to be the only one to have repeatedly caught on his train of thoughts, the first being at the Quidditch World Cup, because she said nothing further when she reached his side. They continued on their way, uneventful of any sort, he didn’t even dock any points from a pair of Ravenclaw fourth-years whom they caught sneaking out from the kitchens, and she didn’t looked his way anymore than necessary. There was an unravelling of awkwardness between them and he knew she was beginning to feel the discomfort of their silence when she started tugging at the sleeves of her robes.  
  
“You’re going to rip that apart if you keep up at it.” He breathed out, looking at her from the corner of his eye as he caught her tugging for the ninth time in a span of 20 minutes.  
  
“I don’t suppose robe malfunction is any excuse to get out of a prefect duty.”  
  
Her gaze met his and he realised that she was making an effort to lighten the mood with a casual repartee. It was strange but he welcomed it nevertheless. “No, it wouldn’t be. But one could skive off with a hot chocolate from the kitchens.” He said, albeit stiffly.  
  
“The late October weather is rather chilly with the forthcoming winter.”  
  
He smirked. “Of all the mundane things, you choose the weather as a topic?”  
  
“Don’t suppose you have any better topic of conversation?”  
  
“There you go again, challenging someone to match your intelligence.” He scoffed. “Doesn’t that get old for you?”  
  
“If your tendencies to make nasty remarks aren’t ceasing as it’s probably in your default nature, I don’t see why my inclination to be a know-it-all brings any offense to you.”  
  
Amused at her confession for the nickname, he almost smiled but caught himself in time. “We’re both insufferable. Let’s leave it at that.” He knew that his words indiscreetly pointed out that he acknowledged her intellectual aptitude, and in fact, he respected for her it, but he wasn’t bothered and allowed the fact to sit in. They had finished their rounds after, and while they both made no mention of their moment of civility, he often found himself revisiting the memory.  
  
He wasn’t any lesser of a prat however as he continued to provoke Potter and the others, something he wished he hadn’t felt a need to do whenever he caught her the flash of frustration in her brown orbs but he was conscious of the expectations of him from his housemates and his father. He was well-aware that his housemates, Crabbe and Goyle in particular, often told their parents of the happenings in Hogwarts and he was among their topic of missives and in turn, his father would be well-informed as well.  
  
She did however, confronted him one day after Christmas when he was in the library on his own – he had been slightly affronted by her assumption that she could freely speak to him, but as much as he would have liked to despise her fortitude, he could only wish he had that much of the same within him. He had overheard his father talking over the Christmas holidays, a deceit concerning the Ministry of Magic, but nothing further as he was almost caught by his father and only managed to escaped by shouting a distraction of his supposed badly-wrinkled dress robes at a poor, unsuspecting house-elf who happened to passed by. His father had came out of the room, glaring down at them both, and without a shudder in his charade – he grabbed the house-elf by its ragged cloth, mercilessly reprimanding the latter without looking at his father as he made his way down the hall with the house-elf in tow. Inwardly, he had cursed himself for failing to stand up against the household’s patriarch and making use of a house-elf as a poor excuse of a verbal shield.  
  
“You can be decent if you want to be. Why are you being the repulsive, incorrigible prat?”  
  
“I don’t suppose that is ‘Hello, how are you’ in Muggle terms.” He deadpanned.  
  
“We are beyond such decorum.” He eyed her with interest and allowed to let her continue, recognising she was likely to be in her ranting moods, ones he had caught Potter and Weasley often being on the end of it over the years. The library was almost deserted considering it was hours after dinner and most students have returned to their common rooms. “Considering how I’ve actually talked to you before this, at least with some affability, I think it’s safe for me to say that you are simply trying to be difficult. Is there such need for you to provoke Harry when really the both of you can coexist without needing threats of hexes to be flung about in our school grounds? Have you really got nothing else to do than to plot of ways to make Harry miserable? And being part of the ridiculous Inquisitorial Squad, that’s just outlandish and stupid.” She sharply exhaled at the end of her words.  
  
“Is there a second wind of this? Because I really would prefer to hear the end of it instead of getting verbally-waylaid again.”  
  
“No, that is all I want to say.” She folded her arms and he internally groaned at the thought of explaining himself to her, which was clearly what she wanted him to do.  
  
“Why do you even bother?”  
  
“Because Harry’s my friend –”  
  
“No,” he interjected, shaking his head with a hard line at his lips, “why do you even bother about the person that _I_ can be?”  
  
She fell silent and he waited with bated breath, willing for an answer to the question. He needed to know if he really had the choice to be someone else, someone beyond the person he was and felt compelled to be.  
  
The Gryffindor prefect averted her gaze for a moment, as if re-gathering her courage and forming her words of reason, before looking to him again. Brown eyes with honey-coloured flecks reveal credence as the words fell from her lips, “Because you are not all that appalling as you made yourself to be.”  
  
He noted how she had implied who he was had been his own doing, and it shook his heart to know that she was seeing through him once more. Deciding he had enough, he turned around to leave but stopped for a moment when the nagging voice of conscience sounded within him. He briefly looked over his shoulder, “Don’t trust everything that you hear about the Ministry.” He wasn’t sure why he told her but he had guessed that the school year wouldn’t peacefully end without involving Potter, the Weasley lad, and her, and a very small part of him didn’t want her to be in the centre of the possible danger that his father may be well-involved in.  
  
It wasn’t until the end of the school year when he heard from his mother of everything that happened at the Department of Mysteries. He had been devastated by rage and turmoil at the news, knowing that his father was incarcerated at Azkaban and seeing his mother at loss while his aunt attempted to take control of the family and the manor.

..................................

  
**1996-97**

  
The summer he was to turn 16, he began feverishly studying and practicing his magical dexterity, in his desire to protect his mother. He wanted nothing close to whatever befell on his father to be repeated on his mother, someone he held closest to his heart despite his undesired nature to reveal any of his emotions. The day he was announced as the newest Death Eater, deep panic arose within him though he tried his damndest to control his shock; the time he thought he had to make his choice was immediately vanished and there were no means to revert the decision that was made for him. He had closed his eyes to compose himself and nodded at the announcement, refusing to meet the approving eyes of his aunt’s, or even his mother’s own anxious ones. That night, he wrote to the girl who thought he always had a choice, quickly composing the letter before he could fling his quill away and tear the parchment in a moment of wretchedness.

 

 

_‘It appears that I have no other options but to be person I ought to be, that I was made out to be. You may be severely disappointed to know this, or you may have guessed it would happen sooner or later.’_

  
He sent it off with an owl he requested from the owl service, not trusting his own owl wouldn’t be intercepted. With a harsh bite of his lower lip, drawing a tinge of metallic tang of blood, he bid a silent farewell to the girl whom he had considered over time, to be the one who could help redeem his lost soul and abysmal heart of darkness.  
  
He had quickly concluded the odds that he was set for the fate of death when his mission was given, but his fear had not been for himself, instead it was for his mother. It wasn’t complicated to see that he was a subterfuge for the Dark Lord’s brazen deeds of malevolence and in the end, he was a mere pawn to be flickered off the chess board when he was no longer useful. It was the sole reason why he allowed himself to be under the tutelage of his atrocious, mental aunt whom he secretly loathed for her blinded devotion to the Dark Lord; he knew he couldn’t fail as he couldn’t afford the price he had to pay.  
  
He also couldn’t face the Gryffindor witch during the few occasions when she tried to confront him in the library or the quieter walkways as they begun their school year. There were no answers he could offer despite knowing he had her distraught at the brutality of his action in breaking Potter’s nose during the first day of their return to Hogwarts. He couldn’t possibly tell her that he knew he was being watched by the Dark Lord’s cronies and there was nothing else but to further push aside the last inches of compassion he had. So he pretended he was unaffected by her constant gazes of silent yearning to talk to him and to have him explain to her the content of his letter. Fuelled by the fear of the possible harm on his mother, and the rapid ticking of time to complete his mission, he spent most of his free hours outside classes to increase his skills in hexes and spells, coming close to mastering non-verbal jinxes. He made his first half-hearted attempt at the given mission, but was livid with himself when an unsuspecting Katie Bell fell to the intended curse. His mission was becoming an affliction on others, including her as she finally cornered him one Saturday in early December and confronted him.  
  
“What did you meant in your letter?” She demanded and he recognised undeterred flare of her emotions when she was determined at something. “Stop avoiding me already, will you? I am not going to have myself be bothered by the likes of you but my conscience is not going to let me up until I find out what is going on with you.”  
  
“Stop with your meddling, it’s unbecoming when you start being concerned for an enemy.” He snapped.  
  
“You are not an enemy.”  
  
“Don’t take me as fool,” he hissed, “I know what Potter has been saying about me and I took no qualms of denying those claims either. I proclaimed it, for Merlin’s sake! How does that not make me an adversary?”  
  
“Your letter.” She had answered as if those two words were the absolute disproof to his words.  
  
“It was written in a moment of madness. Burn it, will you?”  
  
Her right hand dug into the pocket of her school robes and pulled out a parchment he recognised too well. His eyes had widened at the knowledge that she was keeping it with her, still. “I will not burn this, neither will I tell anyone nor even threaten you with it, but you _will_ talk to me and explain to me of its contents.”  
  
“Shouldn’t you despise me by now?” He jarringly replied, one hand running through his hair in grievance and evident frustration. “I’ve hurt Potter.” He spat. “Your best friend. The boy-who-lived. The Golden Boy of Hogwarts. Why are you here trying to talk to me and decipher some foolish parchment of contents that would mean _nothing t_ o you?”  
  
She hardly even flinched at the venom of his words, simply standing there before him with a discerning stare. He guarded his mind, afraid in probable paranoia that she might see into his thoughts and what he has been hiding.  
  
“I am furious that you chose to hurt Harry, but I am going to correct you to tell you that I do, however menial it may be to you and however wrong that my logic tries to scream at me for it, bloody well care about your letter.”  
  
Her words left him in shock and he stood there, wordless for a snappy response as a terrible throbbing wrapped itself around his heart. Someone cared enough to be trying to breach through his guarded walls, someone being her – the one whom he had thought would have given up on him if she found out. Inwardly, he wanted badly to grasp at the hand that was offered to him as the flickering hope arose within him again.  
  
“Let me help you. Please.” Her voice was desolate, pleading even, and he saw the golden brown eyes of hers casting a veil of tears.  
  
He almost broke down as the comprehension dawned on him; she had already figured out he was afraid, stuck in a choice made for him and one he couldn’t run away from. She offered her free hand to him but he could only stare at it, unable to move his own fingers to reach out. “You can’t help me. It’s too late.” He said with bitterness dripping from his voice.  
  
“I’ve seen you,” she pleaded, “you’re not the boy that everyone thinks you are. Stop letting them make you be someone you’re not.”  
  
“I –” he paused, feeling a choke rising in his throat and he quickly swallowed, “I appreciate that you are trying,” he confessed, knowing that he would quite never find the courage, or the time, to put it down verbally, “and I want to believe you. But we both know that I’m a lost cause the moment I gave in to my fate.”  
  
“Fight it.”  
  
“I can’t.” He couldn’t tell her what was happening back home, to reveal to her his mission and not risk the wrath of the Dark Lord on his parents. Worse, discover that she was targeted for harm because he sold himself out to her; it was one of the risks he didn’t want to take at all. Somehow, somewhere along the way, she had found herself a spot in his heart – he never wanted her to, but she did, and she probably didn’t know. He wasn’t sure what she meant to him yet, but he was certain he didn’t want to see her hurt. With that, he quashed the hope within him and placed a determined front, a spiteful tone leaving his lips, “Stop this. There’s nothing more either one of us can do.”  
  
Her face fell and he reminded himself to not give in to his voice of reason. He did however, wanted to remind her of her worth and how she mattered – at least to him, if not to the obtuse Weasley boy whom he had noticed was lately becoming a prick towards her. “Keep your chin up. You’re _much_ more than anyone can put any value of. You are a credit to every witch out there.” He left those words with her, and made sure he never crossed his path with hers, at least on their own, after the library confrontation.  
  
It continued until the one day in May, after Potter’s confrontation at the sixth floor’s bathroom. Sudden deep gashes had appeared on him and as he fell onto the cold floors within seconds of Potter’s muttering of an incantation he had never of, Sectumsempra; he only thought of how sorry he was that he was never getting that hope that was offered to him, and how he would miss seeing that very smile she had once shared with him. He closed his eyes and allowed himself drift into unconsciousness, her face being the very last that he remembered. When he did open his eyes again, feeling tendrils of pain across his torso when he tried to move, he caught sight of familiar brown locks of a figure seated beside his bed in the Hospital Wing. He parted his lips to call out to her but she already noticed he was awake the moment he moved his fingers, briefly grazing her own that were just beside his.  
  
Under the moonlight of the hours before dawn, he saw the fresh tears falling onto her cheeks and that was the moment he realised that he actually harboured a little more than just mere camaraderie for the Gryffindor prefect. He was carrying a torch for her, undoubtedly, and it stung at him to know that he had fallen for someone he couldn’t possibly have.  
  
“He didn’t mean it. I’m sorry.” The whispered words escaped her. “I’m sorry that you’ve been hurt.”  
  
“I was trying to attack him too.” He croaked. She lifted a glass of water to his lips, letting him take a few sips before setting it down on his bedside table again. “What time is it?”  
  
“A little after 3 in the morning.”  
  
“How – how are you still able to be here?”  
  
“I have my ways.” She said and he followed her gaze to Harry’s Invisibility Cloak. “You are awfully popular what with the many visitors you have from your house and the professors. I thought Parkinson would never leave.” She tried to joke, wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. She pulled a small smile to her face and he wanted to weep at the sight of the curl of her lips, so unguarded he had been that a single unconscious tear rolled down onto his sunken cheeks. She noticed it before he did; her fingers gingerly reached out to catch the fallen tear of weakness. The gentle pads of her fingers traced their way to the edges of his eyes and onto his cheek before trailing down to his jaw. It took every inch of restraint within him to not give in to her soothing touch. “What happened to you?” She softly asked.  
  
“I foolishly duelled with Potter.”  
  
“No, I meant through the past months since our conversation in December. I’ve been watching you,” she admitted with an abashed look, “you hardly touch your food, and you don’t even pay attention in any of our classes. Your eyes are always faraway, lost in some kind of thought, never being in presence despite all the commotion around you.”  
  
He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply, as much as he could without hurting himself in the process. When he found his gaze on her once again, he was quietly crying, releasing all the emotional duress he had kept within him through the months. He couldn’t control the tears and had to bite his lower lip to keep from sobbing out loud in all the mental anguish that curled within and drew their fangs around his heart; a damning asphyxiation. She held his hand tightly in hers as she let him cry, never once judging him, and eventually crying with him. He felt the momentary release within him as he clung onto her hand, hoping hard he never had to let go.  
  
Had he known sooner that this was what it would have felt like to have found and clutched onto redemption and hope, he wouldn’t have taken this long to make this choice.  
  
She cried with him until he had no more tears and he found sleep trying to claim his consciousness once more. As if seeming to understand, she dried her eyes and removed her hand from his in a tender motion. “Rest well.” She whispered before pulling the Invisibility Cloak over her head and he fell into the despair of the loss of her.  
  
He looked to the moon outside the window and for the first time in his life, wholeheartedly cursed of his very existence for being born into the pureblood family with delusions of power and pride and all the misconstrued perceptions of their blood status. He mourned for the loss of his entitlement to choose when he could, to decide on the course he actually wanted. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that his mission would end here – he would have to see it to completion, regardless of the pain he was to inflict on her and everyone else. Rage lit his heart in the condemnation he had placed himself into.  
  
When he was finally forced to be in the situation he had dreaded since the day he was informed of the mission, he chalked it up to cowardice as his wand hand trembled. He mustered every shred of willpower within him but he couldn’t quite block out the voice in his head – telling him to stop because he will never be able to live with himself if he went through with it. He respected the elderly man and even without the offer of a protection for his family, he wanted to trust the Hogwarts headmaster anyway. He also wanted to be able to look at her in the eye and tell her that her faith in him was never in vain. He slowly lowered his wand.  
  
The sudden flash of black robes surprised him and within seconds, he witnessed the startling death of Professor Dumbledore. Horrified beyond words, he stood stock still. For a moment, he had almost believed that there was a way out for him without his family being a consequence for his wishful want of an alternative, that he could perhaps find his window of chance with her – the girl he wanted to be with if he could, but clearly fate had other plans for him.  
  
That night, he told himself that there was no way out from the damnation that had now set itself on his path, and there was nothing else but for him to accept and soldier it through for what it was worth.

..................................

  
**1997-98**

  
He didn’t want to return to Hogwarts but it was better than being at the manor where his parents were imprisoned and every bidding of the Dark Lord had him dreading of the possibility that he might be sent out to hunt her down. He was however commanded to be among the ones who were to ambush the trio on the wedding of Bill and Fleur, and in a brief flash of his vision, he caught sight of her fleeing with Potter by her side. Their gazes met and his grey orbs turned downcast in an unvoiced and hidden regret, and she was gone within the next second. He steeled himself and hoped there wouldn’t be any more chances of him being the one to track her because he desperately wanted for her to be safe. He wouldn’t be able to provide her that, and he resigned himself to the other commands of the Dark Lord, including administering the Unforgivable Curses despite his revulsion for the deed.  
  
He was aware that she would be skipping their seventh year and had inkling to the possible reason why but he was always careful enough to never raise his attention to it, keeping the notion concealed with his proficiency in Occlumency. More than once, when he returned to Hogwarts, he had been tempted to contact her just to ensure she was safe but he never dared to do so, fearing a compromise that would lead to an untimely consequence. He mostly kept to himself throughout the school year, reclusive like the empty shell he had been in sixth year. No part of him wanted to be anymore drawn to the impending war he knew was bound to happen, and he even told his housemates to desist in their intentions of any unnecessary internal uprisings, under the pretext that the Dark Lord would inform when it was time to do so.  
  
When Christmas came and gone without any word of the trio’s whereabouts, he had been relieved and hoped they could keep it up until they finished their task. Nothing ever really went his way, as he discovered when Easter beckoned and he was called for into the drawing room. His parents had their backs to him when he entered and did not catch the inaudible gasp that rose to his throat at the sight that greeted him. His heart immediately sunk.  
  
His mother turned to him and he struggled to come forth at his father’s request to identify the trio. He made a quick mental thanks to the quick-thinking Gryffindor witch to have charmed Potter’s face beyond a proper recognition; there was no one else in the right mind who could have willingly casted such a painful swelling on themselves. His father prodded but all that he provided were stammering statements of deliberate uncertainty, “I can't — I can't be sure”. He avoided meeting her frightened gaze and refused to confirm either one of their identities, all the while racking his brain for a way to get them out of the manor before his aunt or the Dark Lord returned. Just as he was about to suggest tossing them all into the cellar where he could buy time to plot their escape, Bellatrix stepped into the room with her attention zeroed in on Godric Gryffindor's sword, and naturally with his aunt’s nefarious loathing for Muggle-borns, her. His blood ran cold as he stayed where he was while the lads were taken away and he inconspicuously reached for his wand in his pocket.  
  
As soon as his aunt began her interrogation, rapidly losing her patience with the brown-haired seventh year, he felt the instinctive reaction to whip his wand out but the latter caught his gaze in the briefest flash of a second and he stopped. Through the pained tears that pooled around her brown orbs of fatigue, she made a diminutive shake of her head under the pretext of a twitch from Bellatrix’s manhandling. His heart throbbed when he realised that she finally deciphered of the reason why he had never been able to turn away from this path, and selflessly, she wanted him to persevere – just so he can keep his family safe. If he disarmed his aunt now, the Death Eaters would attack both him and his parents, and a single touch on the Dark Mark would have Voldemort sweeping in and killing them all. So he stood in his own soundless torment as his aunt began the Cruciatus Curse, watching as the love of his life shrieked in pure torture and shattering his heart in the process.  
  
He owed every bit of his disillusionment of Voldemort’s ideal wizarding world because of her, and he rediscovered his closed-off heart with her. Each piercing scream of agony, screams that resound through the manor, ignited shrapnel of excruciating pain within the Slytherin, searing through him as he felt each slow ripping gash on her body – an after-effect to each augment of the curse’s power by his aunt, was a mirror to his own. He drew blood with the bite of his lower lip, gripping his wand tightly with fury burning in him. An invisible hand drew a sword and twisted in deep within him, gnashing its blade to his insides before reaching for the organ that functioned for his existence, while air was harshly ripped from his lungs and his trachea constricted from an unrelenting clench. Yet he resisted any display of emotion on his face despite the delirious pain that was overtaking his body.  
  
Refusing to remain feeble, he fought against his weakness to put into place undiscerning, non-verbal healing spells on her at every discreet opportunity while his mind furiously worked of an escape plan, looking for loopholes or possible reasons he may have missed out before.  
  
Dumbledore’s death flashed from the depths of his memory and swift deductions were made as he pieced together bits of information he had recalled from his books, including those of the Dark Arts which his father gave him before his fifth year. He also remembered of Dobby and the house-elf apparition; immediately, he lowered the wards surrounding the manor, enough for a house-elf with old magic to make out the gaps, as he mused over his options in getting Dobby to help but he was at loss on how he could possibly communicate with his former house-elf. His father’s voice suddenly cut across his deliberation as the former ordered him to fetch Griphook the Goblin. He had been most reluctant to leave the room, but his mother nudged him forth and with a determined mask slipped on his face, he went down to the cellar.  
  
As soon as he grabbed the goblin with him, he made a quick look at Potter who was near the door and muttered in the lowest voice he could muster, enough for the boy’s ears alone, “Disarm me when you can.” He felt the Gryffindor wizard shift in the darkness and he hoped the latter understood. As he went up to the drawing room, he caught the unmistakable sound of a crack and he almost cried in relief at the possible apparition of someone – someone he hoped with all his heart that would be able to save the prisoners of the manor. He pretended not to notice and hurried back into the drawing room.  
  
The next scenes of events went by in a blur with Griphook’s confirmation of the sword’s forgery, Bellatrix’s call for Voldemort, Weasley bursting into the room and disarming the delirious witch. A flurry of lights cut across the room in the sudden uproar, allowing him the opportunity to scan the room once more, and upon catching sight of Dobby behind the doors; he moved his glance to the crystal chandelier which his aunt and Hermione were right beneath and looked to Dobby again. The house-elf nodded once and the blond wizard aimed his wand in the pretext of disarming Potter, but actually aiming for the chandelier to charm it for a precisely-timed fall at will and made another quick incantation towards the young witch in the clutches of his aunt, rendering her unconscious with an intricate healing spell for a slow restoration of a recipient’s wounded body from the insides while one is deeply insentient. It wasn’t that he assumed that she wouldn’t trust him to help her, but he couldn’t take any chances of an impulsive move from her should she be cognisant – the Weasley redhead proved more than enough brashness to exist in the Golden Trio. No one noticed, except for Dobby, in the maddening jets of lights.  
  
Bellatrix finally heaved the unconscious girl up, lifted a knife to the latter’s neck and he stilled himself, waiting for his time. He could only hope that his calculations weren’t wrong, and Dobby would quickly react. As he hurried to pick up the surrendered wands at his aunt’s command, he gave Potter another meaningful look; one that bloody well expected the bespectacled lad to understand the urgent need to disarm him. He returned to Bellatrix’s side, placing himself close enough to the still comatose young witch so he could protect her from the next course of events, and as his aunt turned her attention to his mother, a non-verbal spell was casted by Dobby and the chandelier above them shook. In haste, the Slytherin lad only managed the variation of an imperceptible Protego on the girl he loved, and a slipshod attempt of a similar protection enchantment in the direction of his mother who had been close enough; leaving himself unprotected and defenceless as shards of crystal scraped his face and hands. The pain from the glass shrapnel was nothing compared to the one he had felt earlier.  
  
Within seconds, Potter leapt to his side and he put up a wrestle for the wands despite his injuries, knowing full well that Potter needed to earn them and to properly disarm him. As Potter managed to loosen his grasp on the wands, he also caught sight of Weasley reaching for the girl, and as much as it ate at him from the insides to know of what they had between – he wasn’t slow to have caught on to their relationship what with the redhead’s bloodcurdling screams of her name during the Cruciatus Curse, he was relieved to have her pulled to safety. He turned for Dobby and froze when his mother misplaced the blame on the house-elf. Dobby did nothing to reflect her words at the actual defector but instead, took the blame to itself as it continued to buy time for Potter and the rest to escape. His mother aimed her wand at Dobby and before he could compel a stop, her wand was flung away from her hand and he managed a tight grip at his mother’s arm to stop her from getting to her wand. To his regret however, he had picked the wrong person to impede as his bloodied eyes widened at the sight of silver slicing the air of the room and hurtling its sharp blade onto Dobby. He bit on his tongue to stop himself from crying out.  
  
He returned to Hogwarts after the Easter holidays, knowing full well that she would return there as well with Potter and Weasley. Somehow, he reasoned that the deciding war was to be at their school grounds; Voldemort never did anything half-heartedly and without an audience – the Dark Lord would want everyone in the wizarding world to cower at the knowledge that he had overtaken Hogwarts, a stronghold of wizards and witches, and to have murdered them all. It was this pride of the Dark Lord that he knew would be a downfall of any man, wizard or Muggle. The Slytherins knew of what happened at Malfoy Manor, but no one knew to what extent was the role he had played, and he kept it that way – though he had pulled his mother aside just before leaving for school and expressed of the hidden truth in the depths of his heart.  
  
“You will be killed, my son.” She had said with eyes wide in horror. “You _cannot_ let _anyone_ know.” She urgently said. “No one must know of your thoughts, seal them off.”  
  
“I want to fight with her.” He confessed, broken and desperate.  
  
His mother fervently shook her head, “You can’t. I will not allow you to sentence yourself to your death. Do you know what that would mean? They, the Death Eaters, your _aunt_ – they will kill you.”  
  
“I’d rather –” He stopped at the sight of the desperate tears that escaped his mother’s eyes. He knew he had said more than enough and he was never one to hurt his mother, emotionally or physically. With tired grey eyes and a soft sigh, he removed himself from her arms and left.  
  
He continued to play his part of the dastardly coward, even as the battle at Hogwarts began, and at the Room of Requirement where he followed Crabbe and Goyle when they decided that they could claim the pride to have captured Potter and his friends. It was a gormless idea that only the worthy fool would think of but he went along with them anyway, if anything, he could keep Potter safe until the lad completed whatever it was he needed to do. When Crabbe screamed of the killing curse, he resisted hard against hexing his own friend and instead, casted a silent protection charm around the Golden Trio, knowing full well they’d be too audacious to remember a simple protection spell before retaliating hexes in defence. The skirmish went beyond his expectation and as soon as Fiendfyre was unleashed, his first thought had been to reach for the Gryffindor witch but he knew he couldn’t leave the stunned Goyle, so he grabbed his housemate first.  
  
Brown orbs of desperation and fear found his and wordlessly, they told each other to make it out alive – regardless. He had thousands of things he wanted to tell her and he needed her to be alive for him to do so. The fires swept all around them, lapping at the edges of their robes, threatening to burn and scar – and soon, the blistering amber flames made it hard for him to see to even move any further. He wondered if this would be how his life ended, as a coward and never telling the girl he loved that he did. A sudden whoosh from above him caught his attention and he looked up, seeing Potter on a broom. The raven-haired wizard caught his eye and swooped right in without hesitation, grabbing a hold of his outstretched hand.  
  
“Ron! Over there! _Now!_ ” He heard her scream. “Help me, Ron!” Potter had shouted in severe urgency.  
  
“If we die for them, I’ll kill you, Harry!” Ron screeched, but dropped down low anyway to his and Goyle’s height. Swiftly, he pushed Goyle onto Ron and hers’ outstretched arms and clambered onto Potter’s broom. He led Potter to the door, but the reckless wizard made a sudden dive downwards and grey eyes befell on the object of reason to Potter’s sudden change of direction. The glittering diadem was speedily falling towards one of the serpents, and on an instinct, he casted a charm that would slow its descend so the Gryffindor Seeker could reach for it. Even in the flames of the cursed fires, his sharp-witted mind worked out why Potter badly wanted the diadem.  
  
“You can’t destroy it as it is, Potter!” He shouted over the scorching flames and billowing smoke, almost screeching as a dragon swooped right next to them, missing the both of them by a narrow inch.  
  
“What then?”  
  
“The flames, let them destroy it! Old magic is capable of defeating an item of the Dark Arts!”  
  
“Why should I trust you?” The Gryffindor Seeker demanded.  
  
“Because I bloody hell enjoy throwing myself into pits of chimaeras, dragons and dangerous creatures! Just do it, Potter!”  
  
He watched with bated breath as Potter levitated the diadem close enough for the blazing inferno to wrap its licking flames of intense heat around it, at the very moment the serpent below them decided to lunge upwards at them. “Potter!” The diadem was swiftly swept back onto the Gryffindor’s wrist.  
  
The next thing he felt was the painful impact with a wall and he fell onto the ground, coughing in gasps of air escaping his lungs. The Fiendfyre did nothing to impair his sharp observations however, he quickly noticed that Crabbe was not among those who escaped the room and when Weasley retorted of the fate of his housemate, he looked down with his dishevelled bangs falling over his eyes – hiding the lone tear of regret. When he looked up, he didn’t miss the apologetic look in her eyes. She was about to reach for him when Potter spoke up, asking for Ginny. The attention shifted away from him and soon enough the diadem broke into thousands of fragments, an echoing scream accompanying the shatter.  
  
Potter looked to him as he breathed in relief, but not wanting to acknowledge anything, he averted his gaze and allowed himself to remain slumped against the wall, letting the trio decide on their next move. He knew this wasn’t the end just yet and true enough, sudden yells of duels reached their ears. His hands curled into a fist as he didn’t need to second guess that the Death Eaters had breached the castle grounds. His first instinct had been to look at her; seeing her soot-covered face and clothes, the messy brown hair loose around her sunken face that somehow still carried the bold confidence that he had came to know her for, and in an abrupt moment, he was afraid of what was to come next if she left his side now. He was wandless and as much as he hated to admit it, rather useless to her at his current state.  
  
Like she always did, those golden brown eyes of hers found their way to meet his stormy grey orbs. “Go,” he mouthed the silent words, “keep safe.”  
  
“You too.” She whispered almost inaudibly, and turned around, leaving him with Goyle.  
  
He didn’t see her again until the end of everything, the screams of terror and the countless spilling of blood, the coloured lights of hexes and curses, everything that were horrible and painful. Bodies around the castle, blanched faces, and bloodied limbs. All his life, he had been picking choices he would regret, so he made another that he wouldn’t – he had already made his first correct choice when he let in a particular witch into his heart – a non-verbal jinx on an unsuspecting Death Eater and successfully disarming the Dark Lord’s follower to obtain a wand. The wand wasn’t well-fitted to him, it took him a few tries to get used to it for a proper channelling of his magical powers, at one point he almost blew off his right kneecap, but it was better than nothing and he took it with him to battle with the other side, not the slightest bit concerned by the disbelief looks from the other students and adults who were engaged in the war of good against evil. Far from that one day in his third year, he finally found the last of the answers he had been looking for.  
  
As it was to be in the ending that was well-deserving, Potter finally triumphed over Voldemort. He had smiled when Potter revealed the master of the Elder Wand and how it would now work in the latter’s favour. The disarming proved to be more worthy than he himself had expected it to, but he claimed nothing to the downfall of Voldemort. If anything, it was all Potter, Weasley, and the smartest witch of their age – the bravest of all Gryffindors to him. Amidst the hugs and huddles of the survivors, he sat with his parents in Great Hall, who found him in similar flabbergasted expressions when they saw who he was duelling with but he didn’t even blink as he shouted at them to “take cover, or bloody well fight for Hogwarts” – his father hadn’t, but his mother stepped up for him.  
  
Every inch of him wanted to go to over to the girl who had endured the war with her innate sense of fierce loyalty and unsullied grace, but instead, he watched from faraway as she sat beside the redhead boyfriend of hers, talking in low voices in a world of their own it seemed. He wasn’t sure when those feelings within him turned into one where he found her to be his equal, or even more, despite their indifferences. All he could say, if anyone were to ask, he would have given up his life on that wretched day when she was tortured in the drawing room of Malfoy Manor if only it would have saved her from the cruelty.  
  
The familiar asphyxiating grip on his heart returned and he swallowed hard.

..................................

  
**Mid-1998, Present**

  
“What do you want?” The question is repeated.  
  
He closes his eyes and when he opens them again, he sees the faces of Wizengamot members looking at him, waiting for an answer in the stillness of the room.  
  
The end of the war saw the burial of loved ones, the reconstruction of the Ministry and Hogwarts, and the house-arrest of several Death Eater-associated families, his family and him included. For almost three months, he was hardly allowed outside the manor – except once, for only a day to attend the sombre memorial at Hogwarts for those whose lives were lost. He stood by the corner that day, completely dressed in black, with eyes glazed in quiet mourning. Later that day, he also went to the various graves around England, from Crabbe’s to Tonks’ and even to Fred Weasley’s. No tears left his eyes but only two words escaped his lips with each visit made, “I’m sorry”.  
  
“I deserved to be exiled from the wizarding world.” He calmly speaks up, without a twitch at his own words even as gasps and murmurs fill the room at his declaration. It is what he thinks he deserves.  
  
“No!” The sudden, shrill voice belonging to a female witch silences the other voices in the room. “Draco Malfoy, don’t you _dare_ do this to yourself!”  
  
The dam within him breaks and all self-resistance crumbles as he averts his gaze to the owner of the voice, standing up from her place at the front row to his right. He misses her, dear Merlin, every inch of him longs for her since the day the Second Wizarding War ended. Slate grey eyes confess of his apology and regret despite his sudden inability to find his voice. He hasn’t seen her since his house-arrest and he was not allowed of any communication, much to his frustration which added on to the displeasure of being caged in his own home once more.  
  
“Hermione!” Ron Weasley tugs at her arm but she pays no notice, looking right at him – Draco Malfoy, the boy who found hope in the least expected of persons, and falling in love with said person in the process.  
  
“I request for the Chief Warlock to reconsider the words of the accused in assessment of the witnesses’ testimonials, all who have given favourable statements of reason to Mr. Malfoy’s defence.” Hermione continues, looking away from him and towards Kingsley Shacklebolt who was presiding over the trial as a stand-in until the Ministry comes in full order with a new Chief Warlock for the Wizengamot is instated.  
  
“The Wizengamot enquired what I want and I have answered.” Draco interjects. “I believe that the judgement will be fair enough, and I will not be of harm to the wizarding community and its rebuilding process.”  
  
“Stop it.” Hermione glares outright at him. “This is not a time to be a martyr.”  
  
“Miss Granger, please behave yourself.” One of the Elders say, looking down at her with disapproval. “Sit down.”  
  
She fumes, removing Ron’s grip on her wrist, and firmly stares at Draco. “Tell it to my face that you are not choosing this for yourself, that this is not who you want to be.” Even after all that they’ve been through, he is surprise that she still sees him beyond the facade that he hides behind. What amazes him more is the fact that she never stop caring and believing in the possible good in him.  
  
“Hermione,” Her other best friend, Harry Potter, reaches for her, standing up beside the brown-haired witch and wrapping his arm around her. He pointedly looks to Draco, “Malfoy, you should reconsider your words.”  
  
Draco understands that Harry is equally disappointed after the testimonial that the latter had given, explaining in detail what Draco had done during the encounter at Malfoy Manor and at Hogwarts, even of the request to be disarmed and helping to destroy one of the Horcruxes. He can’t say he isn’t grateful because he is; Potter had gone as far to almost describing him as a fellow war-hero, much to the stunned wizarding high court.  
  
“Mr. Malfoy?” Shacklebolt’s voice returns his attention to the front. The wizard in front of him holds a similar searching gaze, as he is just as much well-aware that Draco had fought alongside the rest against the Death Eaters.  
  
Draco takes a quick look to his right, sees her brilliant brown orbs sparkling in tears and he thinks what he has for her is sad, beautiful yet tragic. He manages a smile for her, resigned and wistful, and within the next second, he shifts his gaze away and looks to Shacklebolt again. “I will accept my sentence without appeal or dispute.” He determinedly says.  
  
“The Wizengamot will now adjourn for an hour’s discussion. The accused and all witnesses are to leave the room and return exactly an hour from this second.” Shacklebolt announces.  
  
The former Slytherin allows himself be taken away by the guards, even as Hermione’s brave countenance falls and her eyes turned red with tears. He keeps his composure and walks out of the room. Time ticks away with the seconds of the clock, and it isn’t before long that he is front of the Elders and Shacklebolt again. The atmosphere isn’t as tense as he expected it to be – in fact, there is something calming in knowing that this will be a closure to the 11 weeks he had spent in uncertainty of what would come next for him. His father had been taken away to Azkaban for a life sentence, as though Lucius Malfoy did not participate in the Battle of Hogwarts, he had been instrumental in varying Death Eater activities, beginning from the reopening of the Chamber of Secrets. Thankfully for Draco, his mother was spared from the same harsh sentence given her lack of actual participation in any Death Eater activities, for her outright lie to Voldemort about Harry’s death, and for her eleventh-hour betrayal to Voldemort when she fought alongside with Draco and the others. Narcissa was sentenced to community service at St. Mungo’s for 24 months, in which when she is not at the hospital, she will be remain under house-arrest and is required to attend mind-healing sessions.  
  
“Draco Lucius Malfoy, 18 years of age as of 5th June 1998,” Shacklebot begins, “the Wizengamot has decided on your sentence on the holding incriminations of being a Death Eater, a user of the Unforgivable Curses, and being accomplice to the murder of Professor Albus Dumbledore, the late Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, all of which occurred between the months of June 1996 to May 1998.” Draco softly inhales.  
  
“Due to the underage nature at the time of appointment as a Death Eater, out of his will and capability to make a sound decision of logic, Mr. Malfoy is acquitted from the first incrimination and all relations of his activities during the associated role.” He hears a gasp of relief from his right but he doesn’t dare to look. “For the role of accomplice in the death of the late Professor Dumbledore, the Wizengamot finds Mr. Malfoy not culpable in association with the first incrimination. However for the usage of the Unforgivable Curses, Mr. Mafoy is guilty as incriminated, with supporting evidences to its usages. The sentence decided upon is a 10-year exile with all magical powers stripped from Mr. Malfoy – ”  
  
“That is outrageous!” Hermione disrupts, the palms of her hands slamming down on the balustrade of the first row.  
  
“Miss Granger, you will respect the Wizengamot and hold your tongue in the presence of the Elders.” An elderly witch speaks with a firm line at the edge of her lips.  
  
“Hermione, stop it.” Harry agitatedly says. “Let them finish.”  
  
Shacklebolt eyes Hermione for a brief moment before looking to Draco again, and the blond-haired young man gives a brief nod to indicate to the Chief Warlock to continue. “Nevertheless, in recognition of Mr. Malfoy’s involvement in the fall of Voldemort, including the assistance he has provided to his classmates throughout their capture and battle, the destruction of a Horcrux in the form of Rowena Ravenclaw’s diadem, and providing a crucial insider information which led to the defeat of Voldemort – the Wizengamot is in favour of a reduction of the sentence to a 3-year exile with all magical powers stripped and immediate deportation to the Muggle community in New Zealand. Throughout the term, Mr. Malfoy will be under strict 24-hour supervision of the Aurors, and is barred from any communication with the wizarding world. Should he fail to display a reform to his ways and inflicts any harm on anyone, Muggle or wizard, Mr. Malfoy’s sentence will be instantly revoked and reverted to the 10-year sentence. All in favour of the mentioned?”  
  
Hands rise in the air and Hermione immediately stands, this time not even Harry or Ron try to restrain her as they stare dumbfounded at the sentence. Draco guesses that they had been expecting an outcome much lesser than what was given, probably in partiality to the Golden Trio’s testimonials of him. “Stop!” She demands once more, adamant.  
  
There is nothing to protest as he had resigned himself to his choice, another correct one he thinks. At least this way, the wizarding world can rebuild themselves without the shadow of him as one of the Death Eaters lurking around them. He knows that there are still Death Eaters out there, hiding from the Aurors who are hunting them down. Still, a thin veil of tears blurs his vision anyway when he hears Hermione protesting for an appeal.  
  
“You can’t do this to him! He’s only 18. That boy has a future and you’re denying him of it!” She says fiercely, with hot tears crashing down her cheeks. The guards step up to him and he stands as they present him a parchment with his sentence inscribed, and a quill appears for his signature. “Malfoy, don’t sign that parchment!”  
  
His shoulders shook and he bites down hard at his lower lip. He takes the quill and signs his name with flourish. The quill disappears, his signature glows in silver before turning black again, and the parchment rolls itself up with a wax seal bearing the Wizengamot’s crest magically appears to hold it together.  
  
“No, Draco!” Hermione’s pained voice shrieks from the stands. It’s the first time he hears her calling his given name on its own and he thinks of the horrible irony that it can also be the last. “Conceited git! How can you be so selfish to have made this choice?”  
  
“You have never been a choice for me.” Draco bleakly answers. His eyes avert to Ron in a pointed expression.  
  
“No, Malfoy,” Ron shakes his head, almost ruefully, “she already chose you.”  
  
Draco’s eyes widen at Ron’s words and he looks back to Hermione. Her defences are completely disregarded as her face scrunches with her sobs in the evident heartbreak from within.  
  
“It’s time to leave, Mr. Malfoy.” One of the guards says.  
  
“Wait,” he suddenly says, “just give me one minute.”  
  
“Your deportation is immediate.”  
  
“Draco!” He sees Hermione reaching her hand out to him as a few Aurors move forward and try to keep her from climbing over the balustrade.  
  
“Hermione.” The name rips forth from his lungs as he takes an instinctive shift towards her. The guard on his right steps in front of him, blocking his intentions. “Please, please just let me go over.” He pleads as he hears Hermione calling his name once more as the guards pull him away and a book is brought over, he recognizes it be a Portkey, and his left hand is forcibly placed onto it.  
  
Draco curses himself for another wrong choice, yet again.


	2. The story of her

“What do you want?”  
  
_‘Another chance at hope.’_  
  
The question isn’t directed at her so her lips remain pursed, though her lungs make a sharp yet silent intake of breath. While she knows her answer, she doesn’t know what the answer would be for the actual recipient to the question – though she has a suspicion that it may not necessarily be the same as her own, as much as she wants it to be and _knows_ that it should be.  
  
Through the years, she has seen and deciphered beneath the facade, beyond the sneers and malicious remarks or the pompous and misplaced pride; there is a conscience and a heart that is similar to her own, to any other young wizard or witch of the Light. However, she did also notice the self-deprecating tendencies to overshadow that voice of reason, to smother vindication, and to extinguish any flicker of hopeful possibility.  
  
Something within her unnervingly knots and she recognises it to be an uneasy presentiment to the next course of events. Her gaze averts to shift her attention once more to the middle of room. She sees the unnerving calmness and mulish stance, and the quiet voice in her heart tells her that her dreaded fear would realise.  
  
The knot within tightens and her throat feels constricted. She needs to say something but not now, not yet – she wills him to look over, to know that he has a waiting choice with redemption, with them, with her. Brown orbs stay transfixed with a steadfast determination but the subject of their attention doesn’t waver, as if trying his damndest not to look over, and she knows she needs to fight for him. And she will fight for him - just as she has always been since the end of their third year in Hogwarts.

..................................

  
**1994-95**

  
They had just resumed their third year lessons after Easter and she noticed him frequenting the library more often than he normally would. Having spent most of her days in the library, she was well-versed with the students who would be in the library and not, and she was confident that his visits were a bizarre addition to his routine. Still, she didn’t speak to him, though a very small part of her wanted to offer an olive branch of apology for the smack to his face – but she wasn’t terribly disposed to do so, and she only observed him whenever she walked past him in the shelves. Passing it off as last-minute preparations for the final exams, she didn’t place further thought to it.  
  
It wasn’t until their finals for History of Magic that she noticed the evident oddity in him.  
  
Having finished her essay, she was set to proofread it for further additions when her ears perceptively picked up furious scribbling sounds of the quill against parchment. Curiosity filled her and she inched a glance over to her right, slightly diagonal down the row, to the source of the sound. She caught sight of the intensity contorting his features, and it drew out her inquisitiveness further. Keeping a discreet watch over her shoulder for the next minute, she watched with bafflement as he suddenly stopped writing and stared at his parchment – the mixture of appalled realisation and discomfited surprise colouring his expression. She watched on as his lips muttered an incantation before he resumed writing again.  
  
She turned back around and couldn’t help but wonder of the behaviour she had just witnessed. The Gryffindor’s gaze flitted up to the essay topic on the examination parchment. It asked the students to define and describe in their own words of an event between the 13th and 18th centuries that caused ripples through the wizarding world and inadvertently or not shaped the current century. There were a handful of topics that one could write on, and one of them – which she didn’t select but had briefly considered, was on the manifestation of dissonant opinions among magical world’s inhabitants. She diminutively shook her head and pushed aside her questions, choosing to concentrate on her essay instead.  
  
However, as the eventful year rolled around to an end, his behaviour during their exams was brought to her attention again. She was seated in a carriage with her friends as the Hogwarts Express made its way back to King's Cross. Staring out the window as the rest played a game of Exploding Snap, her mind wandered back to that day in the Great Hall and ever the questioning witch; she made a mental list of possibilities. She hadn’t plan to be part of her friends’ conversation but someone brought up the topic about their final examinations, and another commented about noticing a particular Slytherin absorbedly writing away during their History of Magic exams – and a scoff was heard. She turned from the view in the window and gave a disapproving look.  
  
“In all probability, he was only doing his best in the exam – as we should all be doing instead of giving a slipshod attempt simply because Professor Bins’ lectures aren’t the most interesting ones.” Her friends had the decency to look embarrassed, and her features immediately softened; she wasn’t quite sure why she was being particularly defensive, and of him of all people, but it irked her that someone’s scholarly nature was being made of. She had been on the receiving end of it and it certainly wasn’t pleasant.  
  
Through the holidays, she dismissed any further thoughts on him and his behaviour; she reasoned that she no business to be concern in any affairs of his – until the Quidditch World Cup where they met again before the new school year was to resume. She wasn’t all that surprised to see him what with the Top Box seats they’ve had. There was a look in those silver grey orbs that spoke volumes of his incredulity in seeing her as well – but it faded quickly as it appeared and she decidedly ignored him when he said nothing but threw a disdainful gaze their way.  
  
When the chaos at the campgrounds ensued, she certainly wasn’t expecting to see him again either in the midst of the frenzied darkness and panic that was close to a hellish pandemonium.  
  
His voice startled them, but what brought on her astonishment was when he acknowledged her presence, as odious as his tone of voice was. Not one to back down, even in the face of a nasty threat, she unflinchingly challenged his words. Harry and Ron stood up for her, and she knew it wouldn’t be long before either one of them would lunge at him, especially Ron who looked as if he was ready to raise a fist. She bit down hard on her lower lip at the derogatory term he threw at her, and it took plenty of her decorum to restrain Ron. Part of her very much wanted to step up to him herself and greet his face with her fist, but the logical voice within sounded its mystification of his approach simply to tell them that _she_ would be a target of the Death Eaters.  
  
His biting words were malicious, but his voice stressed an allusion; one that implicitly told them to swiftly leave. Throwing him a glare of distaste – despite his possible intentions, she still held her pride in her Muggle-born heritage and his palpable arrogance didn’t make him any less insufferable – she grabbed both her best friends with her to keep them from inching in another word and elongating their time more than necessary. As they make to leave, she looked back once and caught his gaze. His features were unaffected and unruffled despite the furrow of her eyebrows to discern his actions.  
  
Through the weeks, the event that unfurled at the Quidditch World Cup remained at the back of her mind and one she occasionally revisited. There was something different about him, misplaced or wavering, but her intuition knew he was slightly different from the boy he was in the months before. Of course, being rather obstinate herself, she wasn’t one to go digging any further seeing as he was still the condescending prat, one that the she didn’t want to concern herself with.  
  
When he came over on his own accord at the library, on a late September night when the student body had retired to their common rooms, he proved her otherwise. She had hidden the card in her hands, the one from her parents which arrived early that morning, and bravely stuck her chin out in a defensive stance of whatever he was about to hurl her way. She certainly hadn’t expected the conversation that unfolded between them, and found herself thoroughly baffled again when his questions alluded to her rising suspicions. For what it was worth, she challenged him – determined to receive an answer of logic out of him.  
  
“So you do acknowledge your puerile behaviour then?”  
  
A deep frown crossed his face and she could tell that he was restraining from losing the very minimal degree of tolerance that brought him to her corner of the library. His patience only served to raise her suspicion – or curiosity.  
  
“Just answer my question, will you?”  
  
“ _Why_? What does it mean to you if I did?”  
  
His eyes turned into a smouldering slate grey as he indignantly stood up. When he looked to her again, they were cool and impassive as a scathing reply left his lips in all intention to infuriate her further. She swiftly retorted without a second’s wait. She expected him to throw another predictable verbal jab her way and her reply was already at the edge of her tongue but instead, he left her with a birthday wish before he left it at that.  
  
Confused, she stared after him and considered the number of times that he had surprised her in a span of six months or less. He certainly didn’t have to wish her – he could have just left without a word, there was no need for a departing remark. Yet he didn’t and allowed the words to roll off his tongue; words that an adversary would be hardly likely feel inclined to say.  
  
In fact, they revealed to her a glimpse of thoughtfulness, a genuine emotion that she scarcely knew from him. She couldn’t help but reason that perhaps, if he allowed himself, there was a thread of compassion that could unravel if he wasn’t so stubborn to pretend otherwise. Her thoughts flickered to the World Cup when she met his parents – surely who they were, their characters and worldviews would have consequently seeped into his upbringing and naturally, his personality. If only he was brought up differently, or if he was allowed to see the opposite side of the purist looking glass. He didn’t need to know of two extremes, but it would help if he knew beyond his own blood status and magical inheritance, and saw a balance between both.  
  
She considered that she would like to help him to find that balance, if he would let her – and if she held enough willpower to not hex him every time he insulted her and her friends. He was however, seemingly determined to challenge otherwise, especially during one of their Potions classes together when he revealed those horrible Potter Stink badges.  
  
As soon as she caught sight of Harry withdrawing his wand, she knew that either one of the boys would end up in the Hospital Wing – except that they didn’t and she was on the receiving end of his spell instead. She felt a twitch within her gums and within seconds, she could feel the edge of her teeth pushing at her lips. Her hand quickly slapped over her mouth as panic rose within her. Ron hurried over to her and pulled her hand back. Her eyes dangerously flashed for a split second at the Slytherin Seeker across her; grey eyes widened in shock and contrition, but before she could even mutter a word, she felt her teeth growing at an alarming rate.  
  
Overwhelmed by fury, embarrassment and disbelief, a strangled sound escaped her. She vowed that she wouldn’t let her tears fall – not in front of the Slytherins. Professor Snape’s sweeping appearance didn’t help things and unable to bear the humiliation, she whirled around and made her escape. As she ran to the Hospital Wing, she inwardly cursed of his incorrigible habit to be an exponential sodding git of the highest order. The brief moment their gazes founded each other certainly displayed his regret of a spell that took a wrong hit, but it didn’t made it any better that he had still intended to harm one of her best friends. She wondered if her prior deduction of him was terribly inaccurate, and exceptionally delusional of her.  
  
However, when December came around with the Yule Ball, his second approach on his own willing terms proved that she had been right during that night in September and her instincts had not fallen short, which of course, made her wonder what exactly was he trying to do. Reservations rose within her albeit she wasn’t inclined to completely shut him down – yet. Inwardly, she was relieved that it was him who had found her when she escaped from the Great Hall; she wasn’t sure she could handle another one of Ron’s sudden emotional tirade or deal with Harry’s clumsy attempt at fixing things between them. Anyone else but the both of them would be a better choice, she thought.  
  
It was frustrating having to deal with the lads whom she loved dearly but occasionally they had the volatility in emotions that rivalled a heavily pregnant hormonal person – especially with Ron who seemed hell-bent in being a prat lately. While she guessed that he may have felt left out with Harry being one of the Triwizard Champions, and everyone would have their fair share of insecurities after all, she still couldn’t wrap her logic around the redhead’s incessant need to be an unpleasant companion lately.  
  
“You look like a drowned rat,” he spoke up.  
  
His attempt at minimising the uneasiness of having watched her cry induced an ungraceful snort from her though she was faintly amused by his chosen analogy.  
  
“Don’t try for a compliment, I’m not giving one.” He continued.  
  
Refraining from rolling her eyes, she simply deflected his words. Not wanting him to linger anymore than necessary, she shifted her attention away and hoped maybe he would leave. Her hands reached to her eyes and deliberately rubbed at them – wishing to dismiss whatever traces of her evening. When she was satisfied, she took off her shoes and tossed them aside without a second glance. “This has been awfully silly. What was I even thinking?” She muttered to herself. Her right hand reached to her hair and pulled out a few pins that were tucked to her now messy bun. She briefly wondered if she could toss these pins like darts at a certain redhead’s face.  
  
“You were thinking that you could dress up for the evening, look more than decent, and enjoy yourself with a lad who couldn’t pronounce your name yet obviously would worship the ground you walked on.”  
  
Almost scoffing now, she replied, “What good did all that do?”  
  
“Now you are being gormless.”  
  
“Now?” She heatedly repeated, her gaze turning dark at the boy who was sitting a few steps beneath her. Her expression spoke volumes of her irate exasperation that bordered on a threat of a hex and she was inwardly impressed that he didn’t even flinch.  
  
Instead, he soldiered on with indifference. “Sitting here and crying your eyes out, that’s rather foolish if you asked me. You could be dancing with Krum, or off with the rest of your housemates enjoying the one night we get to stay up really late, beyond curfew.” He paused for a moment and then continued, “If some idiots decided that you can’t enjoy yourself then you should go up to them and give them a good slap.”  
  
His words led her to lift her eyebrows, and her eyes widening slightly with the realisation of what he was referring to. The memory came flooding back and she couldn’t resist the smile that was tugging at her lips. She looked to him and offered her display of amusement, as if in wordless appreciation for his attempt at cheering her up – as least she thought that was what he had been trying to do. She found herself relaxing her countenance and allowed the friendly gesture to linger between them. It was the first time in their years in Hogwarts that she didn’t felt an inclination of any ill feelings towards him.  
  
“You remembered.” She pointed out.  
  
“How could I not? It wasn’t that long ago and more than my cheek was bruised that day.”  
  
A burst of mirth tickled at her and she almost laughed aloud but not wanting to wound his pride, which she knew full well that it was valuable to him, she quickly smothered it. It was uncharacteristic for him to ever admit anything that would be humbling. The voice within her warned a word of caution.  
  
He suddenly stood up – so swiftly that it almost took her aback, and she noticed that his guard was up again as if he was anxious of the sudden admission he had made. Disregarding her logic and deciding she could offer him the long neglected olive branch, her left hand reached out for his dress robes before he could run off. Grey eyes shot a tense look.  
  
“You asked me back in September why am I here, as a witch, despite being a Muggle-born.” She carefully said, watching his silent yet perturbed expression. “Do you still want to know why?”  
  
He gave a terse nod.  
  
She gave a small smile and shared her reason. “Because I believe that everyone is meant for something of the greater good of everyone. We don’t choose where we are born into, but we can choose who we want to be.” He wasn’t looking at her when she answered but as soon as she finished, his gaze shifted to her and she kept the determined yet meaningful look on her features. His lips parted as if in surprise of her sudden conviction in him. Her hand released his robes and it took him another few seconds before he turned and disappeared down the hallway.  
  
She softly sighed and hoped he knew that her words weren’t just for herself alone – they were for him.

..................................

  
**1995-96**

  
She didn’t gave much thought to him over the summer holidays; he made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her after the Yule Ball, at least not for reasons beyond making school life as difficult as possible for Harry and as if in an afterthought, her as well. He was a bully, there was no doubt about it.  
  
And as if the Triwizard Tournament had not been enough of a nerve-racking force, Voldemort had to rise and they had suffered the unexpected and horrifying loss of Cedric Diggory – it was clear as day to her that he was to be the least of her worries, instead, Harry was of her utmost concern and his well-being, or the lack of it, worried her to no end. At least Sirius’ presence was a new constant for her best friend, and she was grateful that the man was there for Harry. She decided to make it a point to ensure Harry would never feel ostracised again, and that he was confident that she would always defend his border if someone crossed it – be it magically or otherwise.  
  
It wasn’t until she caught sight of him during the welcome dinner for the returning students and the first-years that the voice within her wondered of his summer and if anything had changed. She decided she shouldn’t prod, there was neither reason nor need for her to do so, and she assumed their duties as house prefects would eventually require them to cross paths for an interaction or another. She harboured slightly lesser of an animosity for him since the Yule Ball, but the irritation didn’t desist – especially when she realised how intent he was in continuing to be a haughty prat.  
  
Ironically, she also noticed how he seemed to avoid her at times, especially at the library where he seemed to take extra effort to walk around the tables just so he wouldn’t cross paths with her. Returning to school for fifth year did took a strain to her nerves as O.W.L.S, prefect duty, and Umbridge found their way into her days so he was the least on the rank of pressing concerns.  
  
The first time the prefects were due to conduct their rounds with prefects of other houses, Gryffindors were paired with Slytherins but just hours before she was due to begin her rounds, she was informed by Ernie MacMillan of a change in which Hufflepuff fifth year prefects were now paired with the Slytherins instead of their initial pairing with the Ravenclaws. Apparently one of the Slytherin prefects had suggested a swop. The sudden change struck her as odd; she had a notion who the particular prefect was, and Pansy Parkinson certainly wouldn’t have bothered because the latter would simply find a way to skive off. So she told Ernie that they should stick to their assigned rota and she would ensure Hannah Abbott gets the word as well.  
  
She would have left it as it was but her inquisitiveness of his paradoxical behaviour was too strong to negate her from ignoring it. His occasional glances over at her during their shared classed further intrigued her; the first few times she noticed them had her wondering if he was going to heckle Harry but he always said nothing and swiftly looked away. She honestly wondered if he had gone barmy.  
  
Fifteen minutes before the clock struck nine, she made her way to Great Hall where the prefects was supposed to assemble before making their rounds. She saw him first as he was distracted by a book in his hands. For a minute, she watched his reading figure and found it a shame that he frequently allowed the prejudiced sneer to find its way to his countenance; without it – he seemed capable of being a regular student, as regular as a Slytherin can be; a fifth year who was engrossed in his preparations for O.W.L.S. She took another few quiet steps forward and immediately called him out.  
  
“What is _wrong_ with you?” She wasn’t sorted in Gryffindor for her tactfulness that was for sure. He almost tripped at the sudden verbal ambush. She didn’t bother to hide her questioning glare when he met her gaze. He chose to be infuriating, as she knew he would be, but she refused to be shoved aside when he dodged her – again.  
  
“Honestly, will it cause you so much of a pain to be in my presence?”  
  
The words effectively made him stopped dead in his tracks. She resisted the winning smirk that was curling at her lips. She knew her meddling ways was all too familiar of an elderly aunt of every family who needed to poke her nose in everyone’s business, but there was something about him that she didn’t want to dismiss just yet. When he silently motioned her over to walk with him, she was inwardly relieved.  
  
The Gryffindor prefect caught the brief look of quiet trepidation, in one of those moments that she saw through his chilly exterior, and she knew there were questions he wasn’t ready to answer. So she swallowed them down and simply fell into place beside him as they made their rounds. She would be civil, that much she had promised herself if she was going to get him to open up – though that didn’t mean she didn’t have her wand within her grasp at all times. She may want to know what was going on with him but it certainly did not mean she was about to be gullible and trust that he would be completely without a trick up his sleeve. Their past two encounters of near civility may have been a fluke.  
  
He was strangely quiet, as if deep in thoughts, and she found herself trying to keep up with his long strides. It was slightly unnerving to say the least when one is in the presence with a Slytherin who didn’t say a word for an hour. She unconsciously began tugging at her robes, occasionally fiddling with her wand that was kept within one of her sleeves.  
  
“You’re going to rip that apart if you keep up at it.” His first words since they started their rounds.  
  
“I don’t suppose robe malfunction is any excuse to get out of a prefect duty.” She lightly replied.  
  
“No, it wouldn’t be. But one could skive off with a hot chocolate from the kitchens.”  
  
She noted the little strangled tone of his voice, as if trying to be blasé yet seemingly affected by the unexpected joke she threw out between them. She commented on the weather and he turned to her with a more expressive countenance than he had a few seconds before. The conversation continued with a little banter, one that she would always remember as there was none of the usual abhorrence or bigotry. In fact, she was stunned with his admission of her intellect – and his acknowledgment of his incorrigible and deluded immaturity. She said nothing to dispute or affirm however, recognising it as a moment best left as it was.  
  
Her rational self reasoned that she hadn’t been wrong on whom he could be, given the right nudge, but she wasn’t sure to what extent would he allowed her in. She could be mistaken, but it was as if he was seeking answers from her, something to justify whatever that was running in his head. She was willing to answer if he would only ask.  
  
They went about their own way all through Christmas, until she finally decided to confront him as his provocations of Harry were increasingly vexing and she suspected that he was only doing so because of his housemates. He was subdued whenever he was on his own in the library or during prefect duties so she formulated the possible reasons to his pretence. Even towards her, he was clearly only being revoltingly uncouth when he was in the presence of others – his act worked on an audience, she realised. She followed him to the library, one of the quieter areas near the Restricted Section – a section she also perceptively noticed he was a frequent visitor of.  
  
“You can be decent if you want to be. Why are you being the repulsive, incorrigible prat?”  
  
He looked up from his book and watched her for a moment before giving an acerbic retort, “I don’t suppose that is ‘Hello, how are you’ in Muggle terms.”  
  
“We are beyond such decorum.” She scoffed and continued on one of her expressive rants.  
  
He took in her verbal diarrhoea rather well and was unfazed as he asked if she had more to continue with.  
  
“No, that is all I want to say.” She replied with her eyebrows knitting together in the expectation of a proper reply from him. There was no way she was going to let him go so easily again. His behaviour thoroughly baffled her and she was resolute to understand what he was trying to do. If he was determined to be on his way to a self-destructive path then she would gladly let him be but first, she couldn’t allow her conscience to be bothered by someone who may possibly be not the person he made himself known as.  
  
“Why do you even bother?” He asked with gritted teeth.  
  
“Because Harry’s my friend –”  
  
He didn’t let her finish as he swiftly rephrased his question. “No. Why do you even bother about the person that _I_ can be?”  
  
Bitterness tinged his words. Her lips closed and she watched the way his gaze stubbornly held her own – challenging her for an honest response. For the first time, she clearly saw beyond the blinkered and repugnant personality he had been holding up all these years; it was a reputation he built for the sake of a misled family pride.  
  
Quiet realisation hit her as she finally understood that he was grasping at anything at all to prove his years of upbringing had been wrong. He wanted, no, he needed to understand that he wasn’t a lost cause and there was a way out for him if only someone offered him. It was as if her words would determine the next course of his path to damnation or otherwise. She broke their eye contact and formulated her words, and at the very same time deciding that he was worth it – she wasn’t going to let him be accursed, be it by his parents, birthright or tradition.  
  
If her fourth year had been a consideration, then her fifth year was an affirmation. She believed in him, she really did.  
  
“Because you are not all that appalling as you made yourself to be.”  
  
The words laid out between them like open cards. She hoped he would deal the same hands that she did.  
  
Instead, the steel grey orbs quickly sobered up and turned a stormy glaze of defensiveness. Disappointment filled her at the sight of him turning away once more. She couldn’t understand why he refused to accept the hand she was offering – ‘ _Isn’t this what he is seeking for? A chance to change things?_ ’ Eyes downcast, she let him leave and she didn’t even respond when he said something about the Ministry of Magic.  
  
A part of her wondered if she had failed to help him understand his own conflicted views. There was a twinge of hurt within to know that he couldn’t trust her. Feeling a wave of bleakness wash over her, she wondered if she could keep trying anyway and if he would let her.  
  
She didn’t get an opportunity to find out however as the end of the term brought another loss, one that almost destroyed her best friend and consequently her heart. She cried for Sirius and Harry, and in the quiet of the night when she first arrived home after the school term ended, her tears fell for the first time for the Slytherin – perhaps she didn’t try hard enough to save him too.

..................................

  
**1996-97**

  
Parchments with a few sentences scribbled across lay strewn across her desk as she debated once more if she should write to him. The summer holidays were a comforting respite from the wizarding world and all its recent happenings, yet she still tried to stay in touch with Harry to make sure he was well but the same couldn’t be said for the other boy whom she wasn’t sure if it would be wise of her to attempt any sort of communication. Would her owl be allowed into the grounds of the Manor, or worse, what if her missive was intercepted? She had seen the newspapers and she knew the wizarding world had begun to spin on an axis of fear and insecurity.  
  
The clock on her bedside made little ticking sounds and she glanced over, noticing that it was almost time for her leave for the Burrow. Sighing softly, she picked up the parchments and folded them, keeping her quill and ink bottle in her bag – she would attempt again tomorrow.  
  
Those attempts never quite made it either as she was distracted by Ron and Ginny upon her arrival at the Burrow, and then Harry’s arrival had her attention completely diverted. Until a night into their summer when a short letter arrived, an owl dropping the missive onto her lap as she was staring out at the stars of the night with a book by her side. Intrigued yet cautious, she reached for her wand and cast a spell to check for any jinxes before reaching for it.  
  
The handwriting was not familiar to her, but she knew she had seen it somewhere before. There was no name from the sender but the contents easily revealed its writer. Her heart ached as she took in the words – regret and wretchedness were scrawled on the parchment. She knew she couldn’t write back to him, not without harming the Weasleys’ safety should the owl be intercepted, and not devoid of a possible risk that she may put him in danger if he was being monitored by the subjects of Voldemort.  
  
She would have spoke to him sooner, if only he hadn’t decided to be his arrogantly bigoted self when they coincidentally met at Diagon Alley. Once again, she recognised his obtuse need to rankle Harry and to conveniently throw a slur her way as well. She made her ire obvious with an unyielding glower his way as her hand tugged at Harry to pull the latter away. She was disappointed in the persona he continued to take on for himself, and how he still foolishly believed that she had yet to see through his act.  
  
When Harry brought up the possibility of him being a Death Eater, a chill crept up her neck and she tried to diffuse the notion – as much as she knew that her best friend was not too far off from the truth. His letter from the summer and his behaviour at Diagon Alley, they were almost palpable indicators to his current status, but she still wanted to believe in him. He wasn’t the enemy, and even if he didn’t believe in it himself, she knew she had to believe for him. There were the occasional moments when she doubted of her trust but she couldn’t shake herself from the fervour in wanting to save him from himself. Their previous encounters offered her more than glimpse beyond the mask he wore, and they were reasons enough for her to remain steadfast.  
  
He wasn’t evil – he was misguided.  
  
Once, she even deliberated the option of going to Professor Dumbledore to seek the elderly wizard’s help but she knew that his ego would never allow it and doing so would only serve to push him further away. Telling anyone else wasn’t any better option either, although she disliked having to keep a secret from her best friends – but when she reasoned out the possible outcomes, she knew it would be better if she said nothing.  
  
However, if she was more persistent to help him, he then proved to be even more determined to disregard her existence as their school year began. The incident where he broke Harry’s nose almost had her flaring in rage to hunt him down in the dungeons, but she held out and told herself that she would get an answer out of him before hexing him for what it was worth.  
  
As if knowing her intentions, just like it was in their fifth year, he avoided her like the plague and she certainly noticed how he took an effort to avoid being alone just so she wouldn’t have an opportunity to approach him. Never one to back down from a challenge, the inner Gryffindor revealing its audacity, she continued to pursue him in an explanation for the letter he sent. Ignoring patience and decorum, she was on the implacable path of getting the insufferable git to stop running away.  
  
Seven in the morning at the Owlery on a Hogsmeade weekend served to be a good opportunity as any for one to bump into the Slytherin Seeker. She crossed right in front of his path just as he turned around to leave.  
  
“What did you meant in your letter? Stop avoiding me already, will you? I am not going to have myself be bothered by the likes of you but my conscience is not going to let me up until I find out what is going on with you.” The frustration had been at a maddening pace for days now and seeing him had finally caused it to tip over the brim.  
  
Grey eyes flashed with dark animosity. “Stop with your meddling, it’s unbecoming when you start being concerned for an enemy.”  
  
“You are not an enemy.”  
  
His chin turned up and she watched as his lips furiously curled. The next words that left his lips were churned out with an ominous snarl but she stood her ground. He suggested for her to burn the letter and she was utterly livid with his vicious folly. Digging a hand into her pocket, she crossly pulled out the letter and held the parchment to his face – so close in temptation to smack him with it. She wasn’t a naturally violent person but he was certainly capable of infuriating her enough to cause tingles at her knuckles to greet his face.  
  
“I _will_ not burn this, neither will I tell anyone nor even threaten you with it, but you _will_ talk to me and explain to me of its contents.” She bitingly said.  
  
His response to her wasn’t any less maddening as bitter resentment was flung at her. She couldn’t understand why he had even thought to compare – did he think he had to be like Harry for her to be his friend, to believe in him? She didn’t want to think he was that asinine.  
  
Seconds pass with fiery sparks of tension in the air as she let his words hung between them. The frosty look in his eyes that accompanied the acidity in his tone of voice simmered into one of ambiguity as he observed her – she knew that he understood how obtuse he was being.  
  
Deciding to be honest, she took a step forward towards him. Soldiering on, she broke the silence, “I am furious that you chose to hurt Harry, but I am going to correct you to tell you that I do, however menial it may be to you and however wrong that my logic tries to scream at me for it, bloody well care about your letter.” Sighing softly, she closed her eyes for a brief second before opening them again. She made sure those silver grey orbs that were coloured in disarray kept their gaze on her as she quietly continued, “Let me help you. Please.” The fingers of her left hand unfurled from the fist it had formed earlier to reach out to him. She held it out between them.  
  
“You can’t help me. It’s too late.”  
  
There it was – the tone of resignation.  
  
“I’ve seen you,” her voice broke but she continued to push hard at the defences he held, “you’re not the boy that everyone thinks you are. Stop letting them make you be someone you’re not.”  
  
His response carried a choked regret but instead of letting her in as she hoped he would, he held her back again and continued to defend his walls of isolation. She struggled to convince him to fight against the demons of his past and present, but he was lost to her as her outreached hand was brushed away. The thought pieces slid and clicked in her mind with a possible logic, and it didn’t take her long to identify a secret behind his words: there was a reason to his choice – and it was one made not for himself; rather, it was for others, and she assumed it was for his mother. He was protecting his family.  
  
When he said with finality that there was nothing they could do, her anger rose again; but this time, it wasn’t at him, instead it was towards the ones who had made him chose this path and got him to belief that he had no other choice but this.  
  
His expression was hard and cold. So she let her hand drop and she stepped aside. He was resolute and he made it expressively clear that he didn’t want her help. Like it or not, she knew she had to respect that – though as much as she hated that choice of his and the voice in her heart was screaming for her to give that help anyway. She still wanted to believe in him, she really did.  
  
Just as she thought he was simply going to brush past her, he suddenly said, almost inaudibly in a near whisper – “Keep your chin up. You’re much more than anyone can put any value of. You are a credit to every witch out there.”  
  
She looked at him in surprise but he swiftly strode away, his footfalls disappearing around the corner with the snow. It would be obvious to any Gryffindor that she had been feeling slighted lately with Ron’s careless behaviour, stemming from her own share of affections for her redhead best friend, but for him to have noticed, she can’t help but wondered if she had been terribly transparent with her emotions. She didn’t think that would have been possible as she made sure to keep her emotions in check during classes and chose to indulge in the lessons instead to distract herself. So it came down to the next possible explanation – that he had been observing her, like he had in their fifth year.  
  
Knowing that he cared, even the slightest bit of the unexplainable reason of why, caused a rosy flush to her cold cheeks but she sensibly brushed it off and reminded herself that if he did care, it only further proved that he wasn’t meant to be a Death Eater. Compassion and empathy certainly weren’t traits that would go hand-in-hand with Voldemort’s boorish and homicidal followers.  
  
So she continued trying and he continued avoiding. More than often, she found herself watching him whenever he was within the vicinity and her surreptitious observations noticed the quiet signs of his withdrawal from everything around him.  
  
Like an empty shell, those shadowy grey orbs took on a vacant expression whenever she glanced up from her book, or sometimes – they coloured with tempestuous dull grey as if he was distraught like the one time she looked over to the Slytherin table from her place with the Gryffindors at the Great Hall during dinner. He was also distinctly more aloof around his housemates and during the hours where she knew he should have an empty slot in his timetable, he would be missing from the Great Hall where everyone would be to catch up on their homework. The common room in the dungeons would have been a feasible option of his choice escape location but she had overheard his fellow Slytherins asking of his whereabouts every now and then so it ruled out the likelihood.  
  
If he knew she had been watching him, he never let her on to it so she continued in veiled concern if he was in trouble of some sort. Her urge to speak to Professor Dumbledore augmented, and she had been tempted to tell Remus to find out if the Order could do something.  
  
Until May came around and she discovered of the confrontation between Harry and him – her heart thudded hard and almost maddeningly against her chest and she realised how afraid she was in knowing that he may have lost his life in Harry’s unknowingly potent slashing curse. She didn’t blame Harry, she knew he was only trying to defend himself and disarm the Slytherin. Harry didn’t asked why when she asked if she could borrow his Invisibility Cloak for the night, his green eyes were apologetic and mournful yet filled with quiet understanding in what she was about to do, and she gave him a tight hug in a mixture of reassurance for his penitence and appreciation of his trust. She wandered down the halls and into the Hospital Wing, patiently waiting for time to reveal an opportune moment where she could step in and get closer to a particular patient’s bedside.  
  
When the clock slowly ticked into midnight and Madam Pomfrey made her last rounds, she slipped in and quietly took a seat by his bed. She pulled off the cloak and set it aside as golden brown eyes quickly assessed the condition of the sixth year prefect lying in bed. A dull pain filled her as she noticed how deathly ashen he was and despite the ongoing healing of his wounds, he had dark circles around his eyes and his facial features appear sunken and hollow. Warm tears pooled at the edges of her eyes as she took in his dreadful state.  
  
She wasn’t sure why she continued to stay by his bedside as the minutes turn into hours but she knew that he shouldn’t have to be alone when he woke up. When the grey orbs finally focused their hazy yet conscious gaze on her, she couldn’t help but breathed out a sigh of indefinable relief. The tears she had been holding back and veiling her red-rimmed eyes finally fell. She sniffled through her tears and offered the apology, one from Harry and her, which had been lingering on her lips for hours.  
  
She tried to keep the atmosphere light but was hard to control her evident distress when she saw a veil of tears in his eyes. She gently reached out for the one that escaped him and made to brush it away. Her fingers traced over his features, as if unconsciously memorizing them to heart, and she was silently appreciative that he was willing to reveal his vulnerability – she took it as a sign of his trust in her.  
  
“What happened to you?”  
  
“I foolishly duelled with Potter.” He dryly answered.  
  
“No, I meant through the past months since our conversation in December.” Deciding to be honest, she confessed that she had been observing him – because she needed to let him know that she does care regardless of how much he may think he doesn’t deserve it, and his trust in her would not be in vain. She had been half-expecting a snarky retort for her admission, but instead, she was met with the sight of a freefall of his pent-up grief and inexorable fear. Her fingers reached for his hand and she held on tightly, hoping to emit some form of comfort and security for him.  
  
Their fingers gradually entwined and she cried with him, revealing her own hidden fears for him and what could come next; she had a foreboding and it was one that she knew that she had to do something to prevent it. She remembered how at the end of her fifth year she had wondered if she had tried hard enough to save him; ‘ _This time, I bloody well better_ ’. When the tears dried, she decided it was time to go. She left him with one last gaze that she hoped conveyed how she still believed in him and he shouldn’t have to live with a damaged soul and heart.  
  
Her feet purposefully brought her to the corridors that led to the Headmaster’s office rather than the ones would bring her to Gryffindor Tower. Upon arriving in front of the gargoyle statue, she quickly said the password – at least the one she last knew of from Harry; and to her relief, the gargoyle moved and revealed the staircase leading to Professor Dumbledore’s office.  
  
“Ms. Granger, to what do I owe the pleasure of your presence in the wee hours of the morning?” Dumbledore certainly was not stunned to see her and there was a knowing glimmer in his eyes behind those glasses; she wasn’t surprised if he had already guessed of the reason to her presence.  
  
“He needs your help, Professor.” The words rushed out from her lungs. “He is terrified and I know that whatever he has been doing or is currently doing isn’t of his own free-will. He is only doing this to protect his family – his mother. You have to believe him and help him.”  
  
“Am I right to assume that we are speaking of the same person that we both have in mind?”  
  
She sharply exhaled and nodded. It was intentional on her part to leave out a name, knowing that the portraits – despite the fact that they were all asleep – could be listening in.  
  
“Please, Professor. He may not come to you on his own, but that is only because he fears of the harm that could fall upon the others but himself. He has been an incorrigible and loathsome foul git, but I have also seen beyond that exterior – this is not who he really wants to be, and who he is truly capable of being if given a chance, a hope.” Dumbledore’s eyebrows lifted in wordless amusement and understanding, the former because of her outright name-calling for the Slytherin, and the latter for the weight of her words. She almost turned red in the ears as she caught herself as well.  
  
Taking a quick breath in, she continued, this time with a slight modesty. “Harry thinks he has been drawn into their ranks. And if that’s true, then he could possibly be in severe danger.”  
  
“And you trust him, Ms. Granger?”  
  
She recalled the letter she had received earlier in the year. “I do. If he is truly doing their biddings, he probably detests them just as much.” She firmly said.  
  
“It will not be easy to remove him from his circumstances without risking the penalties, but having him here in Hogwarts is one of the options to keep him safe.”  
  
Her eyes widened. “Do you mean that you already know, Professor?” Dumbledore said nothing but his kind smile answered her question. “What is going to happen to him now?”  
  
“He will not be expelled, that you can be assured of.” The elderly wizard calmly explained. “But I do have to caution you – what he has to do next needs to take place so you should not interfere. It would continue to keep his loved ones alive, and make this tumultuous year of his worthwhile.”  
  
“Must he go through it?” She was utterly confused and she knew it showed on her face – she could feel her eyebrows furrowing and a frown forming at her lips.  
  
“There are times when we find ourselves grudgingly following a path, to let a course of events to unfurl, even when we may not understand the reason behind it. But eventually, the reason will reveal itself and the greater good that comes out of it will be evident.”  
  
“Professor, if I may ask, could you possibly do me a favour?”  
  
“Certainly, Ms. Granger. If I may be of assistance then I’d gladly see to it.”  
  
“Please don’t let him do something he’d regret for his lifetime. Don’t let him destroy his heart.” She solemnly beseeched.  
  
The wizard’s expression softened and he nodded with a heartening smile. “I’ll make sure of it, Ms. Granger.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“Now, I am sure even as a prefect, you are subjected to same rules of the school where no student is supposed to be out of the dormitory hours after lights-out.” He smile widened with a sparkle of good humour as her cheeks flushed as she remembered the time of the day and the Invisibility Cloak in her hands. “You best be on your way now.”  
  
She didn’t see the Slytherin Seeker much after her visit to the Hospital Wing and as she had promised Dumbledore, she reluctantly refrained from finding him because she wasn’t allowed to interfere. It didn’t meant that she would keep away from helping Harry however, even when she knew it was likely to be linked to him as well.  
  
When the news arrived, it was the least of what she could have ever expected and the excruciating pain of the unexpected loss ripped apart her heart. Dumbledore’s death shook her to the core – but knowing that he had been there and that his orders from Voldemort involved a death execution, it shattered her world and numbed her emotions. She escaped from her friends after the funeral, quietly excusing herself on the pretext of needing to get a breath of fresh air, and hid amongst the quieter staircases. There, quiet anguish escaped her, wrecking her shoulders with muffled sobs and devastating her features with rapid tears streaking down her cheeks.  
  
She understood what Dumbledore meant that fateful morning at his office, and she was terribly grateful that he granted her favour, but she couldn’t see the greater good at all; not for Dumbledore, for Harry, for the wizarding world and Muggle one alike – and for him.

..................................

  
**1997-98**

  
She’d go with Harry, no matter what – that much she knew ever since her second year. Regardless of what came their way and hurled her into the depths of unknowing terror, she would still choose to be with her raven-haired best friend. She was willing to shoulder his burden, and she never wanted him to feel alone, ever – she loved him that much. So when the task before them was revealed, there was no hesitation within as every fibre of her being knew that it was her fierce loyalty to her best friends that sorted her in Gryffindor. Books and intellect were a complement; it was her heart that mattered most.  
  
Of course her choice came with consequences she had to live with, including a memory altering charm on her parents. It was one of the hardest decisions she had to make, and that was the summer that she knew her childhood, its innocence and comfort, was a memory of the past. The small consolation she had with the loss of her parents, seeing as they wouldn’t remember or know her and that was as good as losing them in her life, was their safety. She cried for the longest of time and when she had exhausted her tears, she left her home – the keys turning in place within the door lock was a deafening sound.  
  
Packed and ready to go, she spent her last summer as a regular student and a young girl at Bill and Fleur’s wedding – and that was when she finally saw him. Waylaid by the Death Eaters, the sudden assault brought on screams of strangled panic, hexes and jinxes casted between, as the wedding guests made their harried escape to safety. An event in the celebration of love turned out to be an abrupt parting between loved ones.  
  
Silver grey eyes found hers and she saw his wordless apology for what he had done and was about to do – if she could, she would have dragged him to her side, just so he wouldn’t have to be fighting on the other side. As frustrated as she was to witness him being part of the Death Eaters, she was partly relieved to see him still alive. She had overheard a conversation between Bill and Tonks one afternoon at the Burrow on how he was being caught up with the Death Eater’s ruthless activities against wizards and witches alike; Tonks’ voice quivered with regret for her cousin while Bill sounded dismal at the knowledge of someone so young was pulled into the ranks of Voldemort’s biddings.  
  
There were unsent parchment of letters that she had wrote to him but kept in her trunk of books as she knew she couldn’t send them – so instead, she looked up at the sky every night and picked the brightest star, and when she did, she would tell the luminous astronomical entity of the words that she held within, words that she hoped would be conveyed to him somehow.  
  
There was nothing for them to say as time dangerously ticked away against the score of safety – Harry and her found each other, like they always would, and she knew they had to leave for good. She didn’t look back.  
  
Their mission had been nothing short of a capricious and baleful one, and tensions ran high at times between the trio. She loved Harry like a brother, and she adored Ron like a lover, but it was hard for them to maintain a decent friendship like they used to when none of them knew what the day after would bring and the effects of the dark magic seem to be weighing them down. More than often, she found herself feeling withdrawn and miserable, and reading was the only activity that held together her scattered thoughts and riotous emotions. And she continued to look up at the stars to compose mental letters for him.  
  
It was during one of these quiet moments that Harry found her in a few nights after Ron had left them; she had wanted to go after Ron but she knew he needed space and time apart from them. She penned her thoughts to the brightest star that night, attaching her wishful thought of Ron’s return with it.  
  
“Are you alright?”  
  
She turned around to see Harry and offering a small smile of her own, she pat the spot next to her in a gesture for him to join her on the huge tree trunk she was perched on. “I was just – thinking.”  
  
“You always are.” His response earned a wider tug of amusement at her lips despite her fatigue. “What are you thinking about this time?”  
  
Her gaze shifted to the star for a moment before it returned to the wizard beside her. His green eyes were imploring in curiosity. Honesty seemed like the best option for her; she was tired of secrets and hidden truths. “He’s not all evil as you may think he is, Harry.” His eyebrows knitted together and she quietly clarified, “I meant your Quidditch rival.”  
  
“Slytherin’s loathsome foul git?”  
  
She almost smiled at the very same description she had given Dumbledore not too long ago, but she didn’t. “He doesn’t believe in the same preposterous bigoted ideals as he did before, at least not since our fifth year.”  
  
“The relentless name-calling and bullying would have said otherwise.” Harry darkly said.  
  
“It is a facade to hide his realisations, and possibly to avoid being suspected by his father or the other Death Eaters.” She insisted. “He grew up with Lucius Malfoy, Harry – what are the odds that he was not misled to the deceptions of blood purity and all that absolute rubbish? His upbringing was in a home that exemplified pomposity and prejudice. I have seen him beyond those callous remarks, and – and I feel that you ought to give him chance as well, Harry.”  
  
“A chance?”  
  
“To prove that he isn’t like his father. He isn’t anything like Voldemort. I know that you blame him and Professor Snape for Dumbledore’s death, but he didn’t cast the Killing Curse.”  
  
Harry’s eyes flashed. “But he _wanted_ to.”  
  
“He was dealt with a hand he could not refuse. Think about it, Harry – why would a sixth year student go up against the most powerful wizard of all time, and said student isn’t even you whom we all know has a penchant for foolhardy bravery at times.” Her best friend cracked a rueful smile at her last words, and she knew she had made her point across. “There’s clearly something more that is forcing him to do all of this.”  
  
Harry fell silent and she waited with bated breath. It was important to her that her honesty would not be in vain, and that Harry would trust her judgement; she had decided that she was still going to fight for the Slytherin prefect from himself, even if the lad in question didn’t want to, and having Harry on her side would help.  
  
“So are you saying that I should trust the ferret the next time he tries to duel with me?” Harry’s voice was laced with dubiety.  
  
She almost flinched at the memory of the Sectumsempra curse and its after-effects. “I’m not asking you to trust him, but perhaps you could forgive him?”  
  
“Why does it matter to you that I do?” Harry asked, not out of malice, but merely to understand.  
  
“Because I want to help him, and I believe in him.”  
  
He stared at her for a while but she didn’t falter in her gaze – and he finally nodded without a word. She left it at that and didn’t prod further; Harry needed to assimilate her words and she wasn’t going to push him into taking her conviction as his own, she knew he would come around on his own in time.  
  
Christmas soon arrived and left with the weary December, and the mission continued with tired hearts and minds but they soldiered on. Ron’s return had brought her much needed relief; not just for her heart, but also for the friendship she had missed dearly between the three of them. She was beginning to think that perhaps not all was lost if they could always find their way back to each other – just as she hoped that he would too. She wasn’t sure if she would see him again, but even if they didn’t, she knew that she would have liked to know that he hadn’t lost hope and had found a way out of his coerced condemnation.  
  
Easter unexpectedly threw them together again but in a manner so merciless and atrocious that she would always have it compartmentalised in the set of memories she would never revisit.  
  
He avoided meeting her eyes as much as he possibly could and when his tongue rolled off a blatant lie, she understood he was only trying to protect them. The silver grey eyes of his turned astute and solicitous but before he could say anything else, his aunt appeared with the latter’s gaze gleefully falling onto her.  
  
Ron had screamed for her and the sheer agony that ripped in his voice broke her heart. She willed herself to be brave despite the torturous afflictions that were seared into her being by Bellatrix, but there was only so much she could take of the physical torture before she cried out. It was as if her lungs were burning from inside out while her veins throbbed in raw hysterical surges of pain.  
  
Out of the corner of her eyes she saw the subject of her intangible letters unconsciously taking a step forward. A seething snarl threatened at the edge of his lips and she recognised that he was about to give himself away – _for her_.  
  
Despite her feverish tears and screams, she made out a hasty but well-timed shudder that tacitly forbade him from doing anything; she wasn’t going to allow him to sacrifice himself and his parents. Somewhere along the way of their encounters; his quiet revelations on his beliefs which she discovered, and his unexpected displays of compassion and understanding as he saw through her insecurities and didn’t belittle them – she had grown to care for him.  
  
Just as she thought it was getting too much for her to bear and she felt the beating of her heart weakening with each wave of the curse, an inconspicuously gentle yet incandescent warmth slowly filled her from the inside and the pain begin to ease. Instead, she began to feel comfortingly numb and as the sudden turn of events in the manor unfolded – she recalled seeing Ron and Harry bursting in and jets of coloured lights cutting across the room – she gradually lost consciousness and the last she remembered was the feeling of a soothing blanket of therapeutic afterglow enveloping her and beckoning her to sleep – and the sight of relieved grey eyes.  
  
As she healed, they pressed on to the final fight – the Battle of Hogwarts. She had been battered and bruised, her limbs screaming of fatigue and her insides churning in knots of anxiety. Until she saw him with Crabbe and Goyle in their confrontation at the Room of Requirement; an inexplicable relief found its way to her heart and she knew she had to persevere and finish the last of their tasks.  
  
Beyond the sake of the wizarding world and its inhabitants, and for the Muggles like herself; the downfall of Voldemort would also free him from the invisible shackles that had imprisoned his heart and conscience.  
  
The Fiendfyre consumed everything in the room, including his housemate, but it also destroyed the horcrux. The hollowed screech of evil filled the corridor but she didn’t even flinch as she watched with a firm line at her lips as the diadem shattered into pieces. Within seconds, she heard shouts from around the corner and she knew the castle had been infiltrated. Her fingers tightened around her wand and she chanced a glance at him but he was already looking at her, as if observing her next course of action. He surprised her when he inaudibly told her to keep herself safe. His eyes held the same look she remembered just before she was rendered unconscious at the manor – and she knew then that it had been him with the healing spells.  
  
“You too.” She softly murmured before turning to leave. She was going to make it out of the battle alive and she wanted him to do same too, just so she could thank him and tell him that she still believed in him.  
  
When Harry finally won – she cried. Tears of relief filled her as her gaze quickly shifted all around to access the friends and family who were still standing. They had suffered severe losses – Fred, Remus and Tonks’ deaths were the hardest for her to accept; her already broken heart was asphyxiating as it reeled in shock and horror.  
  
Ron’s face appeared in her line of vision – if his expression was anything to mirror hers, then she knew it would take her years to recover from the battle – and she accepted his comforting hand as they sat down by the fallen masonry. Now that the battle had truly ended, the cumulative consequences of the trio’s actions were finally made known to her. She wanted to look for the blond-haired wizard, but right now, as Ron quietly spoke – she knew the redhead needed someone to face his grief with him and she was willing to take that place.  
  
She would find him later, she vowed, and she would tell him _everything_.

..................................

**Mid-1998, Present**

  
“What do you want?” The question resounds loud and clear in the courtroom.  
  
Hermione Granger feels her breath catch at her throat when he finally answers without a wavering note of trepidation.  
  
“I deserved to be exiled from the wizarding world.”  
  
In an immediate knee-jerk reaction, Hermione swiftly refutes his words with a fierce no. “Draco Malfoy, don’t you dare do this to yourself!” She stares him down, glowering in a mixture of exasperation and angst. She isn’t going to accept this foolish resignation of his to acknowledge a fate that he is never meant for, especially not for all that he had done – rectifying his mistakes, denouncing the pureblood birthrights, and standing beside them in the war.  
  
After the war, all known Death Eaters were quickly rounded by Kingsley Shacklebolt, Gawain Robards and a taskforce of Aurors. Harry, Ron and she had been asked to assist, but the trio was not ready to be immediately involved what with the post-war trauma they had to carry with them for the rest of their lives. Instead, they took a week of isolation in the Burrows with the Weasley family – concealed from prying eyes and ears. They knew they couldn’t hide forever though; there were the dead to bury, the restructuring of Hogwarts and the Ministry, and the other intangible damages that were inflicted by the war.  
  
When Hermione finally came out of her shell of self-exile, the first thing she did was to write to Draco – but she found out she was too late; along with his parents, he was under house arrest and all communication was impermissible. Her rejected letter was returned to her and she was inclined to ask Kingsley if he could make an exception but she knew it wouldn’t be right for her to ask the Acting Minister of Magic to discredit his own orders.  
  
So she didn’t; but she did enter the Ministry to help with the restoration process; drafting documents and letters to foreign wizarding ministries to seek their support, researching and writing new legislations that would help bring stabilisation in the British wizarding community inclusive of all magical beings and creatures, all while also finding out as much as she could on his trial before the Wizengamot. When she knew of the date of his trial, Harry didn’t need any persuasion to be convinced to testify on behalf of Draco – “You’ve always been right, Hermione,” he had said with a small smile.  
  
She looks to the jury and council before her; her line of vision finally stopping at Kinglsey, and unwaveringly continues with her verbal justification. Draco, the suddenly outspoken martyr, interrupts her, brandishing his own indomitable verdict. Riled up, Hermione is reminded of her third year self, in which she would very much like to render Draco silent before he could further obliterate his chance at redemption. Ron tries to calm her down, and she thinks that she may have been clenching a fist if his tightening grip on her wrist is an indicator to her building anger.  
  
On her other side, Harry stands and she feels an arm of his going around her shoulder in a gesture to restrain and mollify her. He tells Draco to reassess and for a brief moment, she thinks that Draco may retract his initial self-proclaimed judgement; his smile, the first genuine one that she has seen from him to her, wordlessly speaks of his silent affection for her – an emotion she had never noticed until now, but then he turns around and voices his acceptance.  
  
Swallowing hard, Hermione blinks back the tears that had unconsciously crept to her eyes. Her defeated heart wallows in disbelief. Harry’s arm pulls her close and she despairingly hides her face in the crook of his neck, burying her quiet tears. Ron takes her free hand in his, giving it a tight squeeze.  
  
She is grateful for Ron’s gesture, and how they have both come to an understanding of their relationship and the feelings between them. While she did fancied him in the romantic notions, as did he, there has always been a part of her that never quite felt complete in her affections. She loves Ron dearly, but it isn’t with the same certainty that she needed to feel herself belonging to. When she told Ron, five weeks after the battle at their school, he had nodded and admitted that it was likely they had jumped into their emotions out of an impulsive reaction to the war they faced. He loves her as much, but not in the same way they would have seen themselves to be destined together as lovers; rather, a close friendship seem to be the best definitive state for both of them to be in.  
  
The Wizengamot council soon resumes and Hermione holds her breath. Her fingers nervously clutch onto Harry’s and Ron’s – if either of them are feeling the blood draining from their hands, they certainly didn’t mention it.  
  
Kingsley begins to read out the formalities and each allegation brings a new tremor of uneasiness within her. The first acquittal brings temporary respite to her tensioned shoulders until she hears the indictment that follows right after. Angered, she releases her best friends’ hands and almost violently objects to the sentence. Despite her dispute, the next course of events passes in a flurry and she chokes at the sight of the council’s unanimous agreement to the final indictment.  
  
The boy she had been trying to save since her fifth year is being banished to halfway across the world – the very same boy that she recently discovered that she actually cares more than she had ever let on to, than she had ever allowed herself to feel. Tears came crashing down her cheeks as she frantically struggles to stop the proceedings before her. Her voice is drowned by the elders’ voices and her vision is hindered by the guards now surrounding Draco.  
  
“Malfoy, don’t sign that parchment!”  
  
Like the exponential sodding git of the highest order that she has always know him as, he disregards her plea and signs his name on the official scroll of parchment inscribed with his immediate sentence. His name leaves her lips in a desperate attempt to get him to look at her and understand what he is doing to himself, and to _her_.  
  
“You have never been a choice for me.” He says with a wretched line at his lips, revealing the equal part and sentiment to her broken heart.  
  
“No, Malfoy,” Ron corrects the former Slytherin, “she already chose you.”  
  
Hearing Ron say the words aloud made it all the more painful for Hermione as she wonders why didn’t she tell Draco sooner; if only she tried harder to reach out to him during his house arrest maybe he would realise that she doesn’t hate him, that she does care for him, and she doesn’t want him to sentence himself to another decision he would regret. And that her feelings for him had crossed beyond the line of a platonic emotion. In between the years and interactions, he became lesser of an insufferable boy from her school and more of the boy whose life mattered to her. Her heart is so attuned to his that she isn’t sure where she ends and he begins.  
  
The guards move in closer to take Draco away, a Portkey in one of the guard’s hands. Immense panic fills her and she screams his name as she attempts to get to his side. She isn’t sure what she would do if she reaches him, but it would definitely involve making sure he bloody well doesn’t touch that Portkey of a book.  
  
“Hermione.”  
  
It’s the first time she actually hears him call out to her by her given name, and the sound of her name in his voice feels safe – like a weave of velvety earthy tones of beige, rose, parchment and pale greys enveloping her heart.  
  
“No, no – wait.” Hermione pushes at the Aurors who are trying to stop her. “Draco!”  
  
She witnesses his hand being placed and within a split second, he disappears from her sight and all that is left is the deafening echo of his voice calling out her name.


	3. The story of them - Part 1

**July 2001 - _An epilogue for him_  
**

  
Picking up a navy blue shirt, Draco slips his arms through it with ease and lets the cotton fabric fall on his shoulders before buttoning the front. Pale grey eyes look into the mirror and he wonders if he should shave. The stubble around his jaw has been quite often a defining feature of his ever since his 20th birthday where he didn’t shave for three weeks when he had been on what the Muggles defined as backpacking trip in South America.  
  
He is rather fond of the appearance but decides that it is too drastic of a change. Picking up the razor and drawing it under warm water; he makes a few neat swipes of the blades around his face. He stares at his reflection again, taking a step back and considers the decency of his appearance with the pressed shirt, dark denim jeans, black oxfords, and a clean-shaven face. Inhaling deeply, he reminds himself not to be a gormless, blubbering 21 year old.  
  
A whistling sound from the kitchen pulls his attention away from the mirror and he hurries out to get the kettle off the stove. His hand adeptly reaches for a mug and a bag of tea, while the other hand holds on to the kettle to tip the contents over. He drops a cube of sugar before giving the concoction a stir with the teaspoon.  
  
Smiling to himself, Draco thinks that he never would have imagined the day he would be this comfortable in the Muggle way of doing things. His eyes catch sight of the toaster and he remembers the countless burnt bread he had wasted in his first week of foray into the Muggle world. He grimaces at the thought of the mess he made with both the washing machine and clothes dryer, and the horrors between the iron and his shirts. It took him a good six months to discontinue any unpremeditated events that would have either burn or explode his living quarters – though he did once caused a blackout that affected every home within a three-block radius.  
  
Three years since his sentence had come and gone, and the days were hardly a walk in the park for the pureblood wizard who had been living in unprecedented comfort and luxury for almost 17 years of his life.  
  
Draco would admit to being quite difficult when he first arrived in Central Otago, one of the many wine-growing regions of the country located halfway across the world from his own. To his unsuspecting shock, the Ministry had took to signing him up under what he found out was a working holiday visa in the Muggle world, and he was to work in a vineyard for six days a week doing tasks that included pruning, harvesting and learning about the viniculture.  
  
The owner of the vineyard, an elderly lady who reminded him a little of Professor McGonagall in the way she would peer at him over her glasses whenever he said something unpleasant enough to result in a smack at the back of his head, had been patient enough with him nevertheless. She allowed Draco to sulk in the first two days of his arrival before finally barging in to his given room and told him that he could either learn how to prune or be pruned instead. It took him another three weeks to realise it wasn’t so bad to be part of the process in producing one of the world’s finest Pinot noir, although the backache was an atrocious consequence he wouldn’t stop complaining about to Madam Hart, the vineyard owner.  
  
Over the months, the stern yet benevolent lady taught Draco how to iron his clothes without burning them, or to cook a decent and proper meal of bangers and mash so he wouldn’t starve himself, while also guiding him on how not to kill the vine during pruning. She had been kind enough to cook a portion for him whenever she made her meals, and in return – Draco researched on horticulture to discover new and better ways in the propagation and cultivation of the vines for better yield and quality.  
  
They were however, extremely fond of getting a raise out of one another; him with his constant grievances about anything from the weather to the pesticides, and Madam Hart with her incessant nagging and eye-rolling at him to learn to use the washing machine, or the dish dryer, or some sort of electrical item, without having to cause any dramatics of a pandemonium or another.  
  
What would have been a 12-month work at the vineyard became a full three years instead as Draco chose to stay on when Madam Hart asked if he’d rather just continued helping her out than finding a new place to stay and work due to his ending term with her. Instead of working six days a week however, he was tasked with just the weekends as she shooed him into picking up a proper education with a local university – “No self-respecting young man will allow himself to go without a decent education,” she had said.  
  
It was how Draco ended up living in a flat of his own near his campus grounds while being at the vineyard during the weekends. He wasn’t aware then but he realises now that Madam Hart had also intended for him to mingle with people of his own age group; to shed his prim and stiff social skills, and to understand the world a little more.  
  
The vineyard owner had no knowledge of Draco’s true background, and still doesn’t – something that Draco is grateful for as he gets a second chance in learning about the world beyond his own demented dystopian one without being judged in expectations by his blood status. Thanks to the push to mend his socially-inept skills, Draco was able to make friends – Muggles whom he could actually tolerate without rolling his eyes, and his worldview broaden with them as they introduced him to the Muggle pastime of movies, music and concerts, theatre performances and live art, travel and backpacking, and of course, dances and parties. He can’t say he enjoyed them all, but he does have a newfound appreciation for the life beyond the wizarding world, and with quite a partiality for Muggle TV comedies and all outdoor activities that require a rush of the adrenaline such as bungee jumping and zip lining.  
  
There were however, the occasions when he would retreat to his shell in quiet pangs of missing for the world he had grown up in, his mother, his wand – the imperative extension to his very being, and of course, the very person who still holds his heart even through the passing years. In fact, Draco himself is still amazed with the feelings that he had hardly imagined would last for years, a lustrum, and still brightly burning in zeal and adoration with steadfastness.  
  
Sometimes he would wonder if he had been imagining things out of the intense yearning of his heart but there were the times when he felt her presence nearby.  
  
The bookstore he frequented every Fridays before leaving for the vineyard, or the cafe where he always stop by for his afternoon tea, or sometimes at the vineyard when he was examining a particular vine branch for his horticulture research. He would turn around, narrowing his gaze as his olfactory senses catch a familiar scent of parchment, ink, hazelnut and the faintest of vanilla. Draco adds it all up to his delusions and hopes for the best that he isn’t going mental.  
  
The clock chimes for 10 o’clock and Draco stirs from his reverie. He places his mug down in the sink and quickly washes it. Grey eyes look around the quarters; his belongings are all neatly packed up in three large boxes, mostly books, and an oversized duffel bag containing his clothes. A knock sounds at the main door and Draco mentally prepares himself before opening the door.  
  
A polite smile is plastered on the face of the raven-haired lad with green eyes standing at the doorway. “Hello, Malfoy.” Harry greets.  
  
“Potter.” He manages a decent smile and Harry’s features form an amicable grin. “It’s good to see you.” Draco honestly says. Every and any indifference of malevolence he has ever felt for the fellow wizard simply diminished during the summer of ’98. “Or is it Auror Potter now?”  
  
Harry shrugs. “It’s all the same. Just Potter will do, or Harry. How have you been?”  
  
“Fairly well. Only managed to cause a power failure, and almost had the oven explode when I was attempting to bake some muffins but besides those, I’d like to think I adapted rather well to the Muggle-life.”  
  
Harry peers over his shoulder. “You didn’t manage to burn down the flat, did you?” He jests.  
  
“The few attempts to do so had failed. Bit of a shame really.” Draco smirks, disguising his quiet surprise on getting along rather easily with Harry.  
  
“Well I’d be glad to hear all about your arsonous tendencies, but I think it’d be best to save it for later. The Wizengamot is rather particular on punctuality. Have you got everything with you?”  
  
“Just those boxes and a bag.” Draco points out.  
  
“Let me take care of those.” Harry pulls out his wand from his holster and with a quick swish and a mutter of a spell, Draco’s belongings vanish into thin air. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your wand back soon.” The bespectacled wizard says when he catches sight of the glint of despondence in Draco’s eyes at the sight of an ability that had been taken away from him for three years. “I reckon it’s been tough for you without it.” Harry sympathetically says, in understanding of Draco’s mental state.  
  
“Dreadful.” Draco simply answers. Though his wand may be a presence he misses sorely, there is still someone in particular that he longs most. “Well, let’s get on with this, shall we?”  
  
Harry taps onto his shoulder to signal Draco to place his hand on it, and within seconds, Draco hears a pop and feels the inexplicable squeeze of his being before opening his eyes again to see himself in front of an old red telephone box that brings both young men to the familiar large hall of pristine, polished dark wood and majestic blue ceiling with gliding motifs of gold. Harry leads Draco with a nod of his head, past the fireplaces and into a lift, and they end up in front of the imposing gilded doors that lead to the room that serves as a venue for all Wizengamot trials.  
  
The moment Draco steps in, he feels all eyes turning to him and he tells himself to remain calm. Beside him, Harry takes a step forward and announces of their presence in the formality of the occasion.  
  
The proceedings to the conclusion of his sentence doesn’t take long; the blond lad remains in the room for only a quarter of an hour as the current Chief Warlock and Kingsley Shacklebolt declare, the latter with a small smile on his lips that doesn’t go unnoticed by Draco, that he – Draco Lucius Malfoy, has completed his three-year exile in the Muggle community and with no further sentence or probation required due to favourable behaviour and significant tolerance. Harry pats him on the back as soon as the Wizengamot disperses, Shacklebolt even comes up to Draco to wish him well – though with a firm gaze to remind him to make good of his future ahead, and he feels his mother’s arms going around him as she murmurs of a tearful “Welcome home, Draco”. Draco hugs his mother and for a moment, allows himself to immerse in the feeling of truly being home again.  
  
Harry hands Draco his wand and as soon as his fingers make contact with it, Draco almost cries in indefinable relief – the brilliant surge of magic immediately runs through his nerves in an invigorating rush, right to his heart to light it up like ember. He closes his eyes for a few seconds, allowing his wand hand to immerse in the intense sensation. Every incantation of a spell and curse flash in his mind and his fingers tightly grasp against the slender frame.  
  
“There’s someone who’d like to see you, Draco.” Narcissa gently says. Draco feels her hand leaving his shoulders and a light nudge following after.  
  
He opens his eyes and looks up and beyond the doors, standing outside in the brightly lit hallway, is the tangible presence of his dreams and delusions. With a warm smile casted on her features, dark chestnut hair framing her face and now reaching her shoulders, the golden brown eyes of Hermione Granger meet his.  
  
Suddenly feeling terribly speechless, Draco can only remain frozen in his spot as his fervent gaze takes in her appearance. She has always been beautiful to him, even in their third year when she slapped him, or in their fifth year during their prefect rounds, or in their seventh year when she was covered in soot and ashes from the destruction of the Room of Requirement – but seeing her again after years, Draco still finds himself falling in love all over again with the beautiful, confident young woman before him.  
  
“Draco,” the sound of his name in her voice reaches his ears and the floodgates within him break without warning.  
  
Before he completely realises what he is doing, Hermione is already in his embrace as he wraps his arms around her and her hands tightly fold across his broad shoulders. Draco’s shoulders shake as tremors from his silent tears give away his intense yearning for her. He feels drops of cool tears on his warm skin and realises that she is crying as well.  
  
“I miss you.” Draco finally admits in a muffled whisper into her ear.  
  
He thinks how the combination of everything in the present is overwhelming, but the one that shakes his heart the most and gives him a mocking voice of fear, is her presence here with him in his arms. He isn’t sure if he should allow himself to hope for anymore than just a platonic affection. Admittedly, he is no longer the boy he was but the young man that stands before her is also someone who may have changed beyond her liking, if she had ever been fond of him in the first place that is.  
  
It takes Draco a few minutes to let go of Hermione and when he does, he feels the heat in his cheeks at the moment of weakness, but her tear-streaked smile reassures him that she feels exactly the same. She takes his hand, Draco finds quiet elation in the way their fingers intertwine, and leads them pass the Fountain of Magical Brethren, the fireplaces again, and to the lift that takes them out of the Ministry. The questions he always had in the back of his mind whirl on his tongue and he wonders which he should first ask but decides to wait as they step out onto the streets, away from the possible nosy ears of wizards and witches. She holds his arm and without so much of a forewarning except for an encouraging smile, she performs a Side-Along Apparition and Draco finds them at St. James’s Park of Muggle London.  
  
Her hand drops from his arm to find his hand again, at the very same moment that Draco seeks hers on an instinct. He smiles at the rosy flush of her cheeks and walks with her to destination she has in mind. The summer morning greets them with the warm glow of sunshine and bright green grasses. Hermione stops under one of the large trees on the open space of greens. Following her lead, Draco conjures, discreetly so, a picnic blanket and sets it under the tree.  
  
“Let’s start with Ron and I, shall we?” Hermione offers with a knowing gaze as she sits down.  
  
Draco nods.  
  
“We were almost together in what would have been our seventh year. The search for the Horcruxes actually took a strain on our friendship but it also helped us both to realise our less than platonic feelings for each other. I thought I had, well, to put it logically, my heart set on Ron because it seemed then that he was who I wanted to be with. Harry was, and still is, a brother figure to me, while Ron – Ron had always infuriated me so with his insensitive remarks but then I realised that I wanted his proper attention, as how a girl should have from a boy.”  
  
At her words, Draco resists the urge to grimace.  
  
She gives his hand a gentle squeeze, as if sensing his discomfort, “But when I saw you upon our return, through the skirmishes we’ve had at the manor, at Hogwarts – I found myself understanding that who I wanted may have been attributed to the ideals of a schoolgirl crush, because who I needed was someone entirely different.”  
  
Taking a deep breath, Hermione softly continues, “He wasn’t as safe, reassuring, kind and constant like Ron was, but he was,” she pauses to look at Draco in the eye, “someone who believed in me, with a conviction that sometimes I don’t find in myself. Because really, I am not always an insufferable know-it-all.” She gives a guilty smile.  
  
“Strangely enough though I didn’t really think to question it much, he also trusted me wholeheartedly so without reservations. He protected me even when he couldn’t, or shouldn’t – simply because I mattered to him. I needed that someone to love me in that unconditional manner because I knew my heart was capable of that, from the very moment I saw him crying during our sixth year.” Draco holds his breath.  
  
“Honestly, he challenged me, maybe sometimes in ways that would drive a person up the wall, but he made me question between what I want and what I need. I reckon he makes me better, because I know he needs me just as much as I need him, and I – well, I want to be that very person he needs me to be.”  
  
Draco wonders if Hermione has any idea of the maddening thumps of his heart against his chest as he listens to her every word. He stills himself and patiently waits – having waited five years for the love of his life, he finds another few minutes or even an hour, wouldn’t be of any severe consequences.  
  
“When Voldemort fell and Hogwarts was set to rebuild itself, Ron and I decided that we simply craved for another’s presence in the anxiousness of the uncertain days that were before us. We are better off as good friends, as we’ve always been since our first year in Hogwarts. That was why, on the day of your trial, Ron shared with you that I’ve chosen you.”  
  
Brown orbs glimmer with unshed tears, “You are my choice, Draco. I wouldn’t say it was completely in romantic affections, that took a while to come about, but in our fourth year when you wished me Happy Birthday – the only one to have done so, I had already chosen to believe in you.”  
  
When I was enamoured of that choice, of you, I couldn’t tell you because of the house-arrest and with the post-war recovery we all needed to do and make. Those we had to bury and say our goodbyes to, Hogwarts needing help to recover before the new school year could begin, the Ministry severely needed to reassure the wizarding community –” Hermione finally pauses in her ramblings and quickly inhales before releasing her breath again, “What I’m trying to say is, I really don’t see myself with just anyone or someone else, and I’d really like to have a world, wizarding or Muggle, with you in it.”  
  
It is almost difficult for him to believe that he is able to have this – the moment with her and the possible life he can have with her in their days ahead. Draco is unable to tackle the foreign concept of loving someone and being loved in return with such intensity. Every word that left her lips in seconds before reverberates into him and expands the glow of hope, the one he had been clinging onto even in the midst of the confusion, silence and frustration of the years before. He wants all of this and knows that he will do anything to protect it if he truly can have it.  
  
Hermione offers him a small smile, reassuring and calm, as if she understands the hesitation and doubt raging within him, the sparks of confusion and insecurity if this is all real.  
  
“I am capable of returning the exact emotions that are coursing through your veins, lighting up every spark and tremor of that innate desire and attachment that lives within your heart.” She says.  
  
Draco is surprised with her confession as he realises that she still sees right through his guarded facade to read him like a familiar, well-loved book that one never tires of. The former Slytherin decides to damn all hesitations of unspoken words and silent hearts. He had long known what he needed to do but he kept running away, the scared little boy that he was simply avoided having compassion to fill his heart. He is however well aware now of the terrible mistakes he has made, including ones that kept him away from her.  
  
“I should be the one to say sorry – and I am.” He brings his forehead to Hermione’s, feeling the soft tickles of her gentle breathing on his skin, and lets his eyes meet hers in an unwavering gaze, “All those days, from our third year and all the way through to this day – I have always been _yours_ , heart and soul. Maybe you’ve never been mine for as long, but I am always, _always_ yours.”  
  
Their noses brush against each other’s and Draco can’t help but to reach out to Hermione, his left hand finding its way to her neck. He decides that any questions he have can simply wait because rather than being updated on what happened in the three years he has been away, he craves most to catch up to what he had missed with the witch before him. His fingers gently graze at the soft skin, lingering for a few seconds, and then they trail up to her jawbone and onto her cheek before returning to her neck. Eyes of grey roam in their gaze of Hermione’s facial features, every crook and curve, as if capturing the view to memory. Hermione’s brown orbs are equally inquisitive, fascinated, though slightly shy as she is aware of the close proximity.  
  
“I love you.” Her fingers intertwine with his as soon as the words; three words, seven letters, escape him and Draco lifts her hand to his lips, pressing a soft kiss on the back of her hand. Her expression mirrors his, promising and trusting.  
  
“Draco,” Hermione softly says, “you don’t have to make any choices on your own anymore. Let me make them with you.”  
  
“Because we both know that I’m hopeless at making the correct choices.” He admits.  
  
“Not all of them, and not all the time.” She simply answers.  
  
Silver grey orbs meet golden brown ones and Draco feels another smile gradually rising to his countenance. Hermione lightly blushes and with an exhale of her breath, Draco sees her come close; she meets his lips in a chaste yet hopeful kiss.  
  
He has dug himself in a hole so unfathomable in its depth with his heart engorged and his blood vessels infused – only of her and wholeheartedly so. Most would have been frightened at the analogy but Draco isn’t the slightest bit wavering. It has always been her for him, the one that he breathes for, the first thought in his day and the last in his dreams at night.  
  
“I’m yours just as much, Draco. So don’t doubt yourself. You’ll never have to choose on your own because I’ll be by your side, _always_.” She promises, and Draco revels in the redemption he had sought after for so long, and finally finding it in its absolute with Hermione Granger.


	4. The story of them - Part 2

**July 2002 - _An epilogue for her_  
**

  
A curl of mirth appears at Hermione’s lips as she watches Crookshanks suspiciously sniffs at the cat treats she had filled its bowl with – they weren’t the usual ones she would buy for the half cat, half-Kneazle, but they are supposedly nutritious for its ‘disastrous mess of stiff hair that the creature calls of a coat or whatever resemblance of a poor excuse of fur’, as she would quote the buyer of said treats. Normally, she wouldn’t take such an insult without a responsive hex, but she was placated by the fact that the buyer does in fact enjoy Crookshanks’ company, terrible fur or not; especially during those Saturday nights when he’d drop by for a movie and he would always allow her cat to curl up against him, even in his most softest of jumpers or those ever-pressed Oxford shirts of his during the summer months.  
  
Placing her cup of tea down on the counter top, Hermione walks over to Crookshanks and crouches down to its level. “He bought that especially for you, you know that? At the very least, you could just give it a taste.”  
  
Her cat looks up at her as if giving it a moment’s worth of deliberation before returning its examination of the feeding bowl. Hermione crosses her arms over her bended knees as she waits. “It would break his heart if you decided you didn’t like it.”  
  
“I’d say absolutely crushed is more like it.”  
  
Hermione lifts her gaze at the familiar voice and sees Harry looking at her with a highly amused grin. “When did you get in? I didn’t hear you.”  
  
“Just a few minutes ago.” Her best friend answers as he walks around her for the kitchen, but not before pausing for a moment with his hand briefly scratching the half-Kneazle on its chin. “Are we having dinner together?”  
  
“That depends if you have any plans for a Thursday evening.”  
  
“Is he coming over?”  
  
Hermione raises an eyebrow. “Will that affect your answer?”  
  
“I see him practically every day at work. I reckon we don’t need to see each other more than that – there’s only so much that I can filter and handle of that blatant sarcasm and misplaced dignified smugness of his. Besides, he probably would prefer to see you more often than he would with me.” Harry teases with a smirk.  
  
Hermione rolls her eyes but the smile on her face gives away her mock contempt.  
  
It has been four years since the end of the second wizarding war, and a year since Draco Malfoy’s return. It is indeed an odd sight to see and fairly amusing to grasp that Draco is now working alongside Harry and Ron in the Ministry’s Department of Magical Law Enforcement. As a Hit Wizard, more often than not, he also partners with Harry in their takedowns of the remnants of Death Eaters or any rogue dark wizard that served as a threat.   
  
In their first two missions together, Harry had came home grumbling about the insatiable nature of the former Slytherin to judiciously strategise their attacks and delineate all possible outcomes before he’d actually set out for their wizard-hunt. Hermione had to hide her laughter behind her hand as Harry is certainly the type to leap without thinking and Draco proves to be otherwise; she is also inwardly glad that Harry has someone else besides her to remind him that going into a mission with just a wand isn’t the most intelligent form of assault.  
  
By the third mission however, it seemed to Hermione that they both got along rather well when they discovered how one complemented the other in skill and foresight, even to the point where they would sporadically spend their evenings after work for a round of drinks with Ron and the other Ministry officers, including Neville Longbottom and Theodore Nott, and for the occasional Quidditch and Muggle football matches. She is grateful that Harry is finding a resemblance of friendship in Draco – even though she understood that he only extended his civility in the first place because of her.  
  
Despite Harry’s positive testimonial of Draco during the latter’s trial, she knew he had still been hesitant of her connection to the former Slytherin.  
  
To say that he had been shocked when he found out about her encounters with Draco during their school years would be the least of an apt description for his reaction. Living with her best friend in 12 Grimmauld Place – Harry had decided that living with the memory of his godfather is the closest thing to a family that he has when he knew he didn’t want to impose on the Weasleys or to return to the Dursleys, and when Hermione was at loss on where she could go with her parents still in Australia, he had been more than pleased to offer her to stay with him for as long as she liked – Hermione chose to be completely honest with him as she has always been when it comes to Harry and her. She told him everything, including her less than platonic feelings for Draco.  
  
“I can’t say that I’ll completely support this, but I trust you, Hermione.” Harry spoke up after a period of thoughtful silence dawned between them. “And I know that you won’t allow yourself to get hurt in the process. You will promise me that, won’t you?”  
  
She had looked into his concerned green eyes and nodded her promise.  
  
The weeks that followed after Draco’s sentencing, and before she returned to Hogwarts to complete her seventh year, saw the Gryffindor witch throwing herself into Ministry work and the rebuilding of the school’s castle and its grounds. Every weekend and free hours of hers was spent at Hogwarts as she, along with the rest of their schoolmates, set about in the rebuilding and clearing of the fallen walls, broken shards, stained floors and torn tapestries.  
  
When September arrived, she returned as a seventh and final year student even though Ron and Harry had chose to continue as Aurors with the DMLE. They visited her every Hogsmeade weekend, and she spent the odd weekends at the Ministry of Magic as she continued to assist Kingsley in the reformation that the wizarding world badly needed. Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had been worried for her, at the immense rate she was occupying her every single waking hour with endless books, assignments, documents and legislations – even Ginny tried convincing her to let go of the Ministry while she was still at Hogwarts, but keeping herself busy had helped to ease the pangs of missing she had for a certain grey-eyed wizard.  
  
Upon completing her final year with seven N.E.W.T.S, Hermione decided to seek out her parents in Australia before she began her official duties at the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures; it was time to bring them home, though she wasn’t too sure how damaging the two year-old spell had been to their actual memories. Both Harry and Ron had accompanied her for the travel as it was a journey they didn’t want her to make alone, figuratively and literally. Harry had insisted on researching with her on the properties of the counter-spell for the memory modifying charm and the original charm’s side-effects, and she was glad he did – it took her longer than she would have expected to come up with the exact counter-spell that wouldn’t render possible harm to the recipient, and the old books from the library in Grimmauld Place’s helped plenty with their research.  
  
With intricate old magic weaved together, and Ron holding onto her free hand as moral support, Hermione nervously recited the incantation. For a brief moment, she had been worried they still wouldn’t know her but when her mother gasped at the sight of her – she saw the recognition flashing in those golden brown eyes that she had inherited.  
  
Before they returned for London however, Harry suggested that since they were already halfway across the world and with off days to spare, they could take a short holiday in New Zealand – in Dunedin, Otago, specifically. She had enjoyed the vineyard trips they took together, the walks along the coasts before they dined in the quaint dining bars by the coastal path, and the spotting of the kororā penguins as they took delight in the sight of the little penguins huddling together.  
  
She knew that it was also the very city in which a certain someone would be around but she never got to see him – until Harry knocked on the door to her room in the bed & breakfast they were staying in, and presented her with a small bit of parchment and his Invisibility Cloak. On the parchment, there were three addresses.  
  
With the cloak around her, and the additional security of a Disillusionment Charm as well, Hermione made her way to the three addresses over the next two days before they were due to leave – one address led to a university cafe, another to a bookstore, and the last was for a vineyard that they did not visit though she hadn’t quite need the third address once she was at the bookstore.  
  
The first address was where she finally saw him, Draco Malfoy, in Muggle clothes of jeans and a dark grey jumper rolled at his elbows, at the cafe with books on the table he occupied as he nonchalantly scribbled some notes, and she had almost dropped her cloak in shock. It didn’t take her much to realize that the second address on the list was also a location that would likely lead her to him.  
  
She had lingered by the bookshelves, quietly watching him read and not daring to pick up a book of her own – it would have been maddening to the Muggles and a dead giveaway to him if a book were to lift itself from the shelves without someone tangible actually reaching for it.  
  
When he made to move, she quickly followed after him, indulging in her curiosity of where he would be heading next. At the vineyard, she observed with an unconscious smile gracing her lips as he good-naturedly bantered with an elderly lady whom she presumed to be the owner, and when he examined the grapevines, or the lack of it considering it was winter, she had been close by – too close it seemed as he abruptly looked over his shoulder with a crinkle of his nose.  
  
Stunned frozen in place, she was frightened at the thought that he may see her and possibly violating his sentence if they made contact – he was not allowed of any sort of communication or connection with the wizarding world after all. Slate grey eyes were defined in their suspicions and he had stood up with a discerning frown as if knowing that someone was watching him. Knowing that she needed to quickly leave without notice, she murmured a weather charm in which a sudden blustery cold whipped around them, making it safe for her to hastily retreat in her steps with his distraction.  
  
Satisfied in knowing that he was well, Hermione gladly returned to London with her best friends and parents, even though she had left a part of her heart in Dunedin.  
  
She did return twice before he was due to complete his sentence, once with Ginny, and another with Harry and Neville.  
  
On the day Draco was to return, Harry came up to her in the early hours of the morning and told her that he had been assigned as the Auror to escort the exiled wizard. He wanted to know if she wanted him to say anything at all about her when he sees Draco but she chose otherwise and told Harry that she’d catch up at the Wizengamot later. There was too much to say and she knew that they were all best said in person.  
  
Despite having taken the day off, she left that morning for the Ministry like it was any other weekday at work to complete some paperwork, before excusing herself at 10 in the morning – the head of her department, Gethsemane Prickle, gave Hermione an eloquent look of jollity as she acknowledged her leave. Theodore, who apparently rejected the pureblood ideals after the Battle of Hogwarts and was now one of her assiduous colleagues who fights for the welfare of magical creatures especially for the unwilling werewolves like their former DADA professor, and Susan Bones – both whom she works closely with in the DRCMC, wished her good luck much to her embarrassment of being rather transparent with her feelings _and_ plans for the day. She couldn’t help but wonder if everyone knew where she was off to on this particular day – which was affirmed when she ran into Ron and Anthony Goldstein at the lift; the former had wolfishly grinned and asked if she was going to change to something more fancy than the robes, formal black pants and white shirt she had on before heading to level ten where there courtrooms were located – it earned Ron a smack on the head from her.  
  
As she made her way to the hallways where the courtrooms reside, she found herself face to face with Narcissa Malfoy. Three years ago, she may have been filled with antipathy for the Lady Malfoy, but it changed when she met the latter at St. Mungo’s just before Easter of her seventh year at Hogwarts.  
  
She had been with Neville, to accompany the latter in his visit to his parents, when their paths crossed with Narcissa who was serving her community service by assisting the Healers. She managed a stiff nod of acknowledgement and just as she was about to drag Neville away by the arm, she heard Narcissa speak.  
  
“Ms. Granger – perhaps you could spare a few minutes?”  
  
Neville looked to her in concern but she knew that her fellow Gryffindor’s worry was not necessary; she highly doubted Narcissa would attempt anything that could ruin hers and her son’s emancipation. She gave Neville a reassuring smile.  
  
“I’ll be with you in ten minutes.”  
  
Neville nodded and left, but not before looking at Narcissa right in the eye as if wordlessly warning the Lady Malfoy that should any harm befall on Hermione while he was away, he would not hesitate to retaliate. If it wasn’t impolite to do so, Hermione would have beamed in pride at the intrepid and confident young man that her friend had grown into, far from the nervous and easily frightened first year she had once known.  
  
“How have you been, Ms. Granger?” The Malfoy matriarch said as soon as Neville was out of sight.  
  
“There have been better days.” She dully answered, not quite liking the small talk.  
  
“I would like to think that these are the better days.” A look of surprise coloured Hermione’s face and she knew it was evident when Narcissa gave a diminutive smile. “I am aware of all that has happened, lest you think that there is no remorse in my memory of the past years. I take no pride in the callous indifference I once had, but I will not lie to say that I am not grateful for the final fall of Voldemort even if it bore a great deal out of the wizarding world. Because it allowed Draco a chance to be free of the foolish, egocentric choices that his father had made – that I made.”  
  
Hermione swallowed hard as she let the words sunk in. Silence descended on them for a few minutes.  
  
“I suppose you desire to cast a hex in my direction.”  
  
“I understand the position you come from.” Hermione carefully said. “And I’m not going to hex you, at least not anymore. You had wanted to protect your son and your family. Every mother would want that, it’s almost an innate desire within a mother’s instincts.”  
  
Narcissa shook her head with a short self-deprecating chuckle. “No, I only want to protect _my son_. Excuse me for my next words of impropriety, but Lucius can be damned for all he’s worth in Azkaban.”  
  
“But can you honestly say that you have never supported him in his spiteful acts?” She challenged. “You didn’t seem to have proactively try stopping him when he attacked the Department of Mysteries in our fifth year, or when your son was forced to commit an almost murder all because he was taking the place of his father, or when –” she paused at the dreadful memory that she had tried so hard to seal under a mental lock and key, “when we were tortured at the manor.” She fiercely finished.  
  
The colour of poise drained from Narcissa’s face.  
  
“Did you even consider of the lives that he had harmed all because you didn’t stop him? Your sister’s grandson, Teddy Lupin, is an orphan in a consequential effect to what _he_ did – to what _you_ believed in. All because of something as ridiculous in the ages-old codswallop of blood purity. And your son – he is paying for what you both did; if it wasn’t for you, he wouldn’t have grown up the way he was as an incorrigible, prejudiced prat.”  
  
She knew she was bring utterly disrespectful but there was really no stopping her when she was in one of her rants, and one especially upsetting as this. She had harboured those thoughts for years and all the anger she had built up against the Malfoys for Draco’s forced path into condemnation needed to be unleashed.  
  
Without another word, she whirled around and left. It wasn’t until later in the night, when she was curled in her favourite armchair in the Gryffindor common room and was in a conversation with Harry using the Floo Powder in the fire, that she gave further thought to the contact she had with Narcissa. Harry had laughed when she recounted her encounter, and reasoned that her rant was well-warranted. She was relieved, until Harry mischievously pointed out that she couldn’t possibly fancy someone’s son and not expect to cross paths with said someone for the rest of her life, especially if she was terribly emotionally-invested in the son.  
  
“I am not terribly emotionally-invested in him.” She indignantly answered.  
  
“Could have fooled me, ‘Mione, what with the dramatic antics at the Wizengamot.”  
  
“Honestly – if you are here right now, I’d not hesitate to break your glasses. That vision of yours is absolutely atrocious with that poor observation of what actually went down at the courtroom.”  
  
“Lucky for me, I remember the spell to repair them. _Oculus reparo_.” He haughtily responded, grinning in the fire.  
  
“Just wait till I’m back for Easter, Harry.”  
  
Harry laughed and despite herself, a grin found its way to her countenance.  
  
“Seriously though, Hermione – you may want to consider speaking to Narcissa Malfoy again. She did after all, betrayed Voldemort when she lied to him about my death. As much as it pains me to say it, but perhaps she isn’t as evil as Lucius is. She had been brought up with pureblood prejudices and allowed them to consume her, just like it did with Bellatrix. Andromeda and Sirius were the stubborn, independent ones, and I suppose not everyone would decide for themselves on how they see the world and to do good for it, instead of relying on family traditions and expectations.”  
  
She eyed Harry with interest. “Are you implying your forgiveness?”  
  
“It’s almost a year since the war ended. It gets tiring carrying all that anger around.”  
  
Feeling ashamed of herself, Hermione knew that Harry had a bigger heart than she did – there she was flying off the handle of rage on a lady who had wanted to offer her an olive branch only for Hermione to spit in her face.  
  
“Don’t blame yourself,” Harry gently chided, “it’s only normal that you got upset because you care. Sometimes, we get a little ahead of our emotions when a loved one is at threat. I know I’d hurl balls of fire and lightning at anyone who’d do so much as to belittle you.”  
  
So two days after Easter Sunday, having spent her break with Harry at Grimmauld Place, Hermione made a trip to St. Mungo’s. It wasn’t too hard to find Narcissa and when she did, Hermione had been the first to present an apology for her behaviour.  
  
“There’s no need for your apology, Ms. Granger.” Narcissa calmly said. “I am at fault as you had said, and it is my burden to bear for the rest of my days. If I had not been subdued and had a spine, Draco would not have suffered as he did. Neither would the wizarding community had to endure such losses, nor for you and your schoolmates who were not of the pureblood to face gratuitous persecution. I should be the one to apologise.”  
  
Hermione had been startled as Narcissa primly offered her hand, but she accepted the proffered gesture of goodwill nevertheless.  
  
“I had also meant to thank you – it was the reason I asked to speak with you the other day.”  
  
“Thank me?” Hermione repeated.  
  
“Yes. It was you who helped Draco to redeem himself, and who believed in him even when you had no reason to.” Narcissa quietly said. “When I had failed him, you guided his heart to the right place. Draco had told me after what happened at the manor that he wanted to fight with you - and for you.”  
  
A heated flush rose to her cheeks at the revelation, but she stilled her tongue to let the lady continue.  
  
“Thank you for saving my son.”  
  
“I care about your son very much.” She honestly said, but leaving out the part where the little voice in her heart eagerly chimed in that she was in fact, profoundly enamoured and disarmed by him, as she didn’t think that Narcissa would have been easily accepting of an association with a Muggle yet. “It is not for who he is – the blood status or the name, but rather, it is for his heart and what it is capable of. He had unreserved faith in me when I didn’t, and he was brave for me when I couldn’t, and most of all – he is magnanimous when it comes to protecting the ones he love, including you.”  
  
That encounter had led to a few invites for tea and Hermione maintained an affable acquaintanceship with Lady Malfoy, to the point that she was also the one to reunite Narcissa with her sister, Andromeda and the latter’s husband, Ted. Little Teddy had been pleased to find himself in the glowing affections of someone with a face that was similar to his grandmother’s and Narcissa was more than content to have her sister and grandnephew visiting her, it certainly allowed her to be less lonely.  
  
So when she met the pureblood witch outside the courtroom that day in July, she had been welcomed with a hug from the latter as Narcissa shared her anticipation for Draco’s return.  
  
Hermione chose to wait outside while the proceedings took place as she knew it would only be fair for Narcissa to be the one to see Draco first. When the Malfoy matriarch gestured her to come over, Hermione was a ball of sparked nerves of apprehension and exhilaration. Seeing Draco in person and finally being able to freely speak to him brought fresh tears to her eyes and her heart trembled so much that she felt her veins pulsating with euphoria. He caught her in his arms and she shamelessly cried into his shoulders as the years of unspoken affection finally revealed themselves.  
  
“On the contrary, I always take pleasure in seeing your defeated green eyes when I prove you wrong for a tactical attack that requires _a little_ more sensibility than just lowering a few wards.” The self-satisfied voice from a newcomer in the room induces a chuckle from Hermione.  
  
“Ah. And there’s the misplaced dignified smugness I was referring to.” Harry says, pointing his teaspoon to the visitor. “Would you mind to stop apparating in whenever you feel like it instead of using the main door like a regular person? Just because Hermione lives here and the wards are built to recognise you does not mean you can come traipsing in whenever you want to.”  
  
“I don’t traipse.” Draco scowls. “And I’m a wizard for Merlin’s sake – I don’t need to use _doors_.”  
  
“Don’t make me show you one, Malfoy.”  
  
Hermione bites down at her lower lip to keep from laughing, simply choosing to pet Crookshanks on its head as her cat decides that its new treats are worthy of a meal. It is nothing unusual for her, or anyone else in their social circle, for Draco and Harry to be snapping at each other in almost good-natured banter. Ron would be close on the heels to bicker with Draco, usually over Quidditch and classic episodes of Doctor Who. In fact, it made it normal for Draco to be a constant presence in her life.  
  
Since his return, Draco gradually assimilated himself back into the wizarding world and she was more than glad to bring him into her circle of friends so he wouldn’t feel left out.  
  
Truthfully, she knows that he handled his turnaround better than anyone would have, despite the initial stings of suspicions and aimless gossip from the people around him – he had bit his tongue at the attempts to discredit him and some took it up a notch with upfront mockery and backhanded insults. She didn’t fight those battles for him as she knew he was every bit capable of fending himself, and he did by proving his worth as a Hit Wizard. Six months later into the job; everyone at the Ministry had learned that the name Draco Malfoy isn’t one to be made synonymous with a Death Eater or even with Voldemort.  
  
Draco also made amends with the rest of the Weasleys and Neville, and even with Andromeda and Ted – he is now the proud uncle of four-year-old Teddy whom he enjoys spending time with every other Sunday; she knows because she’d occasionally tag along in the uncle-and-nephew outings and Teddy seems to equally adore his blonde-haired uncle which of course brings up another ongoing feud, albeit in good humour, between the little boy’s godfather and uncle on whom was the most favourite. Draco had even took to opening a trust fund in Gringotts for Teddy in quiet reparation for what he felt to some degree had been his fault that Remus and Tonks had lost their lives in the war.  
  
He had the Malfoy estates evaluated, and while he is unable to sell them away in his disgust of all the ancient dark magic and wealth, seeing as Lucius is still alive in Azkaban, he did however managed to re-channel majority of the earnings from the properties to Teddy’s trust fund, Hogwarts, St. Mungo’s, the Ministry, and a decent portion is also set aside for his mother.  
  
The former Slytherin further chose to acquire a terraced house for his mother and himself in Knightsbridge, among the Muggle community, instead of living at the Malfoy Manor. He wanted nothing to do with his past, and she had often caught him regretfully staring at the faded yet evident mark on his forearm; during those moments, Hermione gently reminded him that his history is nothing to be ashamed of – “There was a part of you who was compassionate and empathetic, the one who saved us at the manor, who helped us to win the war with his astuteness on dark magic, and the one who loved me with his whole heart. He is your past and is still a part of you, but he does not completely define who you are now. Your present is today and it’s now, you get to determine how you’d like for your future to be.”  
  
“Stop it, _both_ of you. We’ll be having dinner together and there better not be any food fights like the last time.”  
  
The responses came in unison: “That was just _one_ time.” – “He charmed the mashed potatoes.”  
  
“Honestly, the both of you ought to be tired of bickering with each other after a day’s worth at the DMLE.”  
  
“He started it.”  
  
“By apparating in?” Draco retorts as he swiftly walks over to Hermione’s side and drops a gentle peck on her forehead in greeting. “Hello, love.” He murmurs.  
  
Her heart makes a little cartwheel like it always does whenever he displays his quiet gestures of affection. She laughs when Harry makes gagging sounds and Draco rolls his eyes before cracking a smile of his own at Harry’s silly antics.  
  
She knows that they still have much to work on and years ahead to completely mend the heart of his, and hers; through all the worries and nightmares of their own, the occasional insecurities and fears that would creep into their hearts – but if this is how their days are going to be then she knows that Draco Malfoy will be alright. Even when there are times where they both find it hard to breathe when memories of the past manage to find their way into the present and threaten to wedge a riot in their relationship.  
  
The past never really leaves, but she has always believed in him and him for her – and that is enough. Draco will never be alone, and he will _always_ find his haven of redemption with her, just like she has found love with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for reading - and I hope you've enjoyed it :)


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